The poor got justice.
Phoenix got the cash.
Robin Hood went free.
And suddenly, all of that history was being replayed to him by whoever had sent him the news article. Someone was watching, Phoenix thought. Somebody must have wanted something; and this idea dropped into his cerebral cortex so quickly, with such certainty and assurance, that he knew beyond question that he was being blackmailed or propositioned or both.
Phoenix folded up the newspaper article and set it neatly in the front drawer of his desk and locked it away. He slumped back into his black office chair. On any other day, he would’ve panicked – and maybe that’s what he’d do tomorrow. But not today, thanks to another round of Oblivium. He slid his chair backwards, gliding effortlessly across the brown, mottled carpet, and turned around to the left like a child spinning on a barstool in an ice cream shop. He opened the middle drawer of a tall, gray file cabinet, removed three large file folders, and returned to his desk without dropping them.
The missing persons’ case, or was it plural – cases? And was it one case involving two hundred people, all of them snatched by one perp? Or was it two hundred separate cases, involving two hundred different perps? Simple. Over two hundred people, all older, all wealthy, all from Middle Tennessee had, over the last six months, simply disappeared. One perp.
Detective Jenkins had been watching him. She pushed the door open as soon as Phoenix opened the first folder, and she stepped into his office. She pushed the door behind her and stepped up to the front of the desk.
“Nice office, Phoenix,” she said, looking around, acting unusually perky.
Phoenix watched her face, thought he saw the desire – no – knew he saw it, knew that she’d like nothing better than to take, not only this office space, but his job as well. She strutted it; and she’d been doing it since she’d arrived at NPD. Though he could always count on DeAnte’s lifelong friendship, he also knew that a better relationship, the kind that could play to her advantage, could always be forged in the room of some cheap motel.
He knew why Alaia was here. He knew the lab would ID him from DNA samples taken from June’s body cavities – that’s why she was here. Probably. Better to head her off at the pass – tell her what he knew. He leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, and said, “Any chance I’ll be getting my shirt and jacket back? On second thought, maybe I’ll just toss them.”
Alaia, like a good detective, put her attention on Phoenix, looking straight into his eyes. She was watching him, looking for motion, in his eyes and behind them. Looking for lies.
“I was just heading down to Chief Cobb’s office,” Phoenix said, “then to see how much Psyke June Buckner poured into me before she raped me up one side and down the other. Maybe we’ll find some recipe markers in it, want to join me?”
“No,” she said, her face looking slightly contorted, now that Phoenix had blown her out of the water. She turned to leave, stopped, and swung back around, as angry as a red ant. “And just how would you know, Phoenix Malone, what Psyke feels like?”
Phoenix raised his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t know. That’s the beauty of it – heck, for all I know you’ve already used it on me.” Phoenix laughed and watched Alaia’s eyes bore into him; and it thrilled him all the way down to his toes. “On second thought, I can’t remember you ever looking satisfied, so nix that.”
Alaia Jenkins gave herself a second, biting her lower lip and nodding. “You know what, Phoenix Malone? You’re the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. You’re dirty – and I know it. You’re going to last about a month after I get done with you.”
“Let me guess – you’re saving up for a month’s worth of Psyke, right?” Phoenix said, laughing. “Just make sure you can afford the Viagra, too.” He leaned forward with his eyes as wide as saucers. “You’ll need that!”
Alaia gave him the middle finger and turned, almost as if she expected to see Chief Cobb coming through the door, ready to take her side on whatever issue she’d ask him to take. And there he was. He’d probably been following her around, sniffing the air after she passed, trying to see where her estrogen might lead him. She waved him in, or maybe her chemistry drew him.
Chief Cobb came strolling in, his face hard, and his jaws set like iron. He stopped near the wall of the closet and propped himself up, crossing his arms across his huge chest. His massive biceps looked too large for his shirt sleeves, and his collar so restricting it made Phoenix want to reach up and touch his own neck. Cobb was clearly about to take Alaia’s side. Heck, Phoenix would if he was in his shoes.
But just seeing Cobb like that, with his head in mid-shake and his lips pursed, moved Phoenix to anger. And he knew Cobb didn’t miss seeing his subtle reaction. He picked up a couple of papers sitting on the left side of his desk, held them up in the air, and waved them like a gambler with a pair of winning tickets at the horse races.
Phoenix’s voice was tense and, had he listened to himself, loud. “I was with June Buckner the night before she disa … reappeared. No. Scratch that. June Buckner … no, June Buckner was alone with herself when I was with her on the night of March tenth, or some crap like that – but you get the picture.”
The two men just stood there, looking at each other.
“Phoenix,” Chief Cobb said.
“Yes, DeAndre’?”
But Phoenix caught it – saw that Chief Cobb was swerving away from a confrontation he’d come down one floor to initiate. He rubbed his hand down the length of his wide face like he always did when there was trouble. “Just give me a copy … and give Detective Jenkins one while you’re at it.”
“Already did that.”
“Detective Jenkins,” Chief Cobb said, ending on a low, serious note. “Please give me and Detective Malone a few minutes. Just wait in your office and I’ll be by.”
“Yes, sir,” Alaia said, then she looked at Phoenix. “Just give the chief my copy.” She turned on a dime, smartly and crisply, and left.
“I told you to keep her off me,” Phoenix complained, barely above a whisper.
Cobb walked over to the desk. He scrubbed his hand over his face again, and his voice seemed to lose some its power: “You know I got your back, right?”
Phoenix looked at Cobb disinterestedly, shooting him a “oh-don’t-you-now?” look.
“No, I want to hear you say that you know I have your back.”
Chief Cobb – DeAnte’ when they were off duty – had said that to Phoenix a million times back when they both lived in the same tenement in East Nashville. He’d saved Phoenix from the black kids more times than he could count.
“I know you do,” Phoenix said. “I wouldn’t be here if---”
“But here’s the rub. We found a syringe in the top pocket of your coat, the one June was wearing, and your fingerprints are all over it. Now, I know you’re clean on this one. But you’re suspect number one, whether I like it or not.”
“The Psyke went into my arm, DeAnte’.” He rolled up his sleeve and held it out. A fool couldn’t miss the needle marks where June, who must have been drunk, had played a hand of darts with his arm. “Dr. Demachi looked at it when I was in the lab. I didn’t hide anything.”
“And the lab results on you and what was in the syringe will be ready any minute,” Cobb said, almost apologetically. “But the lab knows for sure that there’s no Psyke in June Buckner’s blood – or if it is Psyke, which it may be, it’s something new, something hybrid.”
Phoenix grimaced and, once again, reacted peremptorily. “Which verifies my story – I got shot up, DeAnte’. Now, you’re going to hold those results, aren’t you? You’ve got to give me time to work on this.”
“This little thing is getting a lot of press,” Cobb said. “They’re waiting downstairs as we speak. When the lab results hit the streets, you may have to turn in your badge.”
“DeAndre’,” Phoenix said, looking down at his desk and then back up again. “I was not with June �
�� I mean, yes, I was, in a body kind of way – but I wasn’t conscious until morning. It’s a set up.”
“Possibly – and yes, I’ll hold he results as long as I can. I’ll say we’re securing the evidence for the time being. But do what you gotta do.”
Phoenix reached into his desk and pulled out a piece of gum, but he didn’t unwrap it. He just stood there holding it, looking hard at Chief Cobb. “I’m being set up.”
“The missing persons’ case?”
Phoenix, without the least hesitation, looked at him and said, “What else could it be?”
Chapter 4
The cell phone on the nightstand buzzed early and inconveniently, walking itself to the edge of the wooden table before Phoenix grabbed it. When he got it right side up, he held it close to his face. He tried to read the caller ID, squinting through the predawn fog in his eyes like a man needing glasses. No number. A name instead: Alaia Jenkins.
“I told you never to bother me at home … what? … one more time? … Where? … gunshot wound to the chest? I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and landed on the floor. Phoenix, wearing nothing but his plaid boxer shorts, stood up. He stayed in place for a few seconds, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and shaking his head like a punch-drunk sailor. He looked at the time on his phone, blinding himself in the process. Four-Thirty a.m. Not even the dead were awake yet and, if they were, they were not to be messed with.
The dull roar of traffic, a forever-permanent part of the Nashville soundscape, seemed to come straight through the walls of his apartment overlooking I-24. He could sleep through it without a hitch, maybe because he’d been forced to listen to it for so long. How he heard his phone vibrating and sizzling on the table was a mystery.
Phoenix walked to the bathroom, hating once again the same morning routine, only with renewed fury. Twelve and half minutes it would take him, no more and no less, to undress, shave, bathe, dry himself, put on deodorant, get dressed, slip his wallet into his pants, then the keys, and finally strap on his thirty-eight – only he’d left it at the office. He wondered if anyone had designed a time-released Oblivium. Then maybe he’d be able to wake and be numb to the morning routine.
If his wife Tracy had been here, she would have been up with him. He could almost hear her in the kitchen, starting the coffee, putting together a couple of eggs and two slices of toast, calling him and telling him it was ready. And nobody did breakfast like Tracy – eggs, over easy without broken yolks, toast buttered all the way to the edge like a painter doing canvas. OJ mixed with tea. She’d leave quickly though, with a “Bye! Bye! Bye!” and a bone-crunching hug.
He grabbed a chocolate Kellogg’s breakfast bar. He’d get coffee later.
I-24 and Harding place never looked so peaceful during the day. It would be a rolling roadblock in half an hour. He took the airport exit east and drove onto Harding Place without a hitch. The air was cold, and the glare of the street lights seemed garish, as they always did in the morning darkness. He arrived at the precinct at five on the nose, parked, and noticed a parked ambulance. He fobbed his way in through the rear door and took the elevator to the second floor.
Chief Cobb and Alaia were waiting.
“And so the plot thickens,” Alaia said, with her eyes on Phoenix.
“No press, yet,” Chief Cobb said, yawning. “But by now, one of the paramedics is probably on the phone selling the story. Let’s go.”
When the elevator doors opened onto the third floor, Phoenix stepped off the elevator. His shoes clicked smartly against the hard, white-tiled floor, and the smell of the lab, always pungent with chemicals, but maybe too strong this morning, hit him hard enough to make his head hurt. Maybe it was alcohol – maybe something else. But the air was so thick with it a fly wouldn’t have had a chance.
Phoenix saw five police officers standing in the hall with coffee cups in their hands. Two paramedics loitered with them. They all leaned forward, looking through the double glass doors, speaking softly among themselves. One of them had his finger on the glass, probably pointing out something in the room.
Phoenix hurried down the hall and, coming to the glass door to the lab, was nearly knocked down by a photographer coming out of the room.
Chief Cobb removed his phone from his pocket and stared at the screen. He looked up at Phoenix, then nodded towards the crime scene. “Get to it – tell me what you see. I gotta take this.”
Not far into the room, leaning with his back up against a set of white, baked-enamel cabinets, and his head slumped down on his chest, was the body of Dr. Albin Demachi, the senior lab technician with NPD. Both of his hands, both equally bloodied, were on the floor, steadying his torso in a grotesquely upright position, holding him in place so that he wouldn’t fall over. Dark red blood nearly obscured the whiteness of his lab coat. It covered the chest area completely and pooled down into his lap creating a small ocean.
“You followed procedure, I take it?” Phoenix asked Alaia.
“And for some reason, Chief Cobb wants you to go over everything,” she said. “All we need is an autopsy and the bullet – not a thing more. Yes, Phoenix, I’m finished here.”
“You should have waited – I should have been notified earlier.”
“Sure, I should have called you, but I didn’t because you needed the rest. You would have been late anyway.” She opened the glass door for one of the officers. He and two others stepped into the room just behind Alaia, and the door quietly swung back and closed.
Phoenix turned around. The officers stood there with their hands in their belts like they had nothing better to do than enjoy the gore. He glanced at their faces for a moment and gave them a little smile and a nod. He got nothing in return. He faced forward again, towards the body of Albin Demachi. He focused intensely on the body of his old friend; and from the very corner of his peripheral vision he saw Alaia eyeing him, and he timed it so that he turned away just as she started to speak.
“Let me guess,” Phoenix said. He swung sharply around and so did the officers. “I did this – and you just know that one of my thirty-eights is sitting in Albin’s chest lodged right up against his spine. Okay, I confess – I did it. Now will you let me get to work here?” His phone vibrated in his pocket.
Alaia pursed her lips, dour-faced and disapproving.
Phoenix, after a brief pause, smiled. He stepped away from Albin and towards the other end of the room and he answered his phone: “Detective Malone.”
“Thirty-eight bullet, you’re right,” a smooth, calm voice breathed through the phone. “Dead on – from a Smith and Wesson. And, yes, you did it. Well, that’s what Cobb’s going to say.”
“Who is this?”
“Eaten any Krystal’s lately?”
Chief Cobb came into the room. The officers made a path, and he walked over to Alaia. Cobb put his hand around her waist, which looked odd, and she turned her body around, moving as fluidly as fine champagne in a crystal glass.
Phoenix didn’t say a word.
“Your gun – you left it on your desk yesterday, making you the smartest man that ever lived,” the man on the phone said. “It’s short one round. And you can guess where that round is.”
Phoenix lowered his chin against his collar to hide the chaos in his face, and he turned away so that nobody would see or hear him. “Who is this?”
“Look, I’m here to do you a favor,” the voice said. “I owe you, big time, bigger than you will ever know – so listen closely.”
With Alaia and Chief Cobb taking an interest in his direction, Phoenix took a few steps further away and turned his back on them.
“I’m … I’m listening.”
“Whether you like it or not, Alaia Jenkins will probably get your job – there’s too much stacked against you. Plus, you’re always late – and that’s caught up with you, only you don’t know it yet.”
Phoenix felt his guts somersault. “Go on.”
“And tha
t’s not going to matter anyway,” the man said. “Oooh, did you see that?”
Phoenix turned around in time to see Chief Cobb and Alaia leave the lab. The three officers in the room remained hovering near the glass doors; but they turned to ogle Alaia and, when the door closed, one of them grunted. “See what? What am I looking at?”
“Dr. Albin is starting to twitch.”
“He’s dead.”
“Obviously – but he’s about to pull a June Buckner, only from the other side of he grave. I suggest you go and get your gun. Oh, and you were right. You are getting close on that missing person’s case, by the way. But have you ever thought of listing the missing people alphabetically by profession? Sounds strange, I know. But look into it. You might find something interesting.”
Phoenix stood there without moving, staring into the blackness of the moment. He was thoroughly out of his league on this one, and he could only marvel at just how dark this whole business had suddenly become. He scrunched up his eyebrows and shook his head. “Is this a joke?”
“And find out who they were giving money to while you’re at it,” the man said. “That’s it – that’s all I’m going to give you for now. So---”
“I am being framed then, right?”
“You’re being taken into hand,” The voice replied.
“And---?”
“And what?” the voice asked impatiently.
“What about June Buckner?”
“Just go get your gun,” the voice said. “And I’d hurry if I were you. The guy who does the autopsies? Don’t worry. He’s going to find somebody else’s thirty-eight inside Dr. Demachi. But if you can make some evidence disappear – like a certain syringe – and take it to your old pharmacy friend at St. David’s University, you’ll throw Cobb off and learn something.”
“Wait.”
“What now?”
“June Buckner – and Albin Demachi – they’re all part of this?”
The man paused. Then he sighed, maybe, like an adult wearying of a child’s questions. “Let’s look at it this way. June Buckner and Albin Demachi are missing right? So add them to your missing persons’ files. Or do you need another hint?”
Time Clock Hero Page 3
