Triage: A Thriller (Shell Series)

by Phillip Thomas Duck

  I WANTED IT TO begin, but not to end. Wanted to somehow prolong the sensation working up from my toes toward my midsection, but she tightened her thighs and dug her fingernails into the meat of my back and wailed as if she were kneeling at a prayer wall in Israel, drawing me in so deep I could do nothing but succumb to the propulsive physical release. Afterward, she lowered her hand, eased me from inside her, and collapsed on my chest. Her skin was warm like fresh laundry and damp with sweat. I could feel her heartbeat and smell the shampoo in her hair, taste the balm on her soft lips as I leaned down and kissed her. That stirred her, and she smiled as she opened her eyes and observed me.

  “What?” I said, discomforted by her survey.

  “You tell me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means what we’ve been doing has been…inspired. Tonight more so than the other times. Something has renewed your vigor.”

  “Are they teaching you all of those big words in Grad school?”

  “Uh-huh. So what’s on your mind?”

  “Noah Avery,” I admitted after a brief hesitation.

  “Ah…” She rolled off me, sat up on the side of the bed. “Hemming Bishop Holliday’s disabled daughter into a corner wasn’t enough?”

  “Something is not right about Noah Avery. I’m just following whatever course this thing sends me down. This is unscientific work, at least the way I’m doing it.”

  “Don’t you think you’ve taken this thing too far?”

  “No,” I said. “Nevada isn’t home safe. From the very beginning, the moment you first called me, it has been my goal to see her home safe. Nothing changes that.”

  She looked at me for a beat, sighed, and said, “Okay. You’re right. Why the sudden alarm on Noah Avery, though?”

  “Bishop Holliday said Avery was physically ill after we left yesterday. That seems an extreme reaction. Also, Avery was involved with the money that changed hands during the so-called blackmail. Bishop Holliday had nothing to do with it, if he is to be believed. And I do believe him. Lastly, Avery comes from a rough background. He appears to be prim and proper, but I know better.”

  “So his background automatically means he is involved?”

  “He’s worth checking out,” I said. “Don’t turn this into something else.”

  “I don’t see a lot in your points,” she said. “He was physically ill. Okay. He’s obviously close to the Bishop. You have to admit your presence was disturbing.”

  “Still…”

  “He’s the Bishop’s personal assistant. Of course he would handle the money. The Bishop doesn’t strike me as a dumb man. I would think someone would have to earn his trust. And he trusts Noah Avery.”

  “Blind trust perhaps?”

  “Perhaps. And Noah’s background…you know how I feel about that sort of thing. I have to admit, I resent your insinuation that his background makes him a bad guy.”

  “Like I said, don’t turn this into something else. He’s worth checking out.”

  “How?”

  I smiled. “Where it all began.”

  “English, please?”

  “McKinty Homes. His mother still lives there.”

  “You’ve already started checking up on him?”

  I nodded.

  “Nothing I said would’ve stopped this anyway,” she said.

  “No.”

  “The experience with Candace Holliday has had no effect on you? You’re going full-bore with this thing?”

  “The only way I know to go, Siobhan.”

  “I’m coming along,” she said.

  I nodded. “To keep me honest.”

  “Some good that does,” she muttered.

  I smothered those words with my lips.

  She said nothing further after that.

  THIRTY-THREE

  MOST OF THE APARTMENTS in the McKinty Homes had grimy plastic blinds in the windows, and although the river was within spitting distance, the residents could not see it, their views obscured by a wall of rusted-out shipping containers stacked over four stories high. The older residents remembered a time before the containers. They remembered mother-daughter kickball tournaments, dance contests, summer slip-n-slides using water stolen from hydrants. However, those memories were fading like voices in the roar of jets that took off every few minutes from Newark Liberty International airport. The memories replaced by the containers and the smell of garbage carried in the wind from the incinerator only a mile away. Poverty summons hopelessness, despair, and angst. It is a face marred by deep blemishes. McKinty was a mirror in which poverty’s face was reflected.

  “Do you know Andrea Avery on the second floor?” I asked a coffee-colored man fussing with the drawstring of a white garbage bag in the stairwell.

  He looked up at me and frowned. “You don’t know not to walk up on people unannounced? If I was jumpy you might have yourself a world of hurt right about now.”

  “I highly doubt it.”

  He straightened to his full height and took inventory of me. Siobhan locked her arm in mine and moved closer to me. “You ain’t from around here,” the man said. “I’d know you if you were.”

  “This where the young boy was shot? They said it happened in the stairwell.”

  “The media blowed that out of proportion,” he said. “This is a safe place.”

  “If that’s so,” I said, “I’m guessing you would like it to remain safe.”

  “I hear the threat in what you’re saying, and I probably couldn’t do much with you,” he admitted, “but I can end this conversation.”

  Siobhan squeezed my arm.

  I took a deep breath. “Listen—”

  “Keep your money,” he said, eyeing my hand. “I’m not for sale and I don’t involve myself in anybody else’s business.”

  I closed my fingers around the twenty I’d eased out of my pocket. “I was hoping you might know Ms. Avery and could give me a sense of the woman. I need to talk with her, either way. I was just making sure she wasn’t too frail for my conversation.”

  He laughed despite himself, floated the word frail back at me so softly it died in the air.

  I said, “It’s been a pleasure speaking with you, sir. I can only hope Ms. Avery is equally as pleasant.”

  He hefted his garbage bag and brushed past us.

  “You just can’t help yourself,” Siobhan said.

  “We have a door to go knock on.”

  “For someone as charming as you she’ll probably answer with an unregistered Glock.”

  I smiled and nodded at the stairs. “In that case…ladies first.”

  FRAIL WAS DEFINITELY NOT a word that came to my mind when Andrea Avery answered her door. She was a tall woman, easily the height of an average American man, five-foot-nine or thereabouts. She was also on the north side of three hundred pounds. She had the handshake grip of an NFL running back not prone to fumbling the football and the generous smile of an elementary school principal on back-to-school night. I told her our names but nothing of what had brought us to her door.

  “I was hoping for Publisher’s Clearinghouse,” she said to us. “But I like to always look at the bright side. So I’m gonna hold out hope that you still have something good to tell me.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about your son,” I said.

  It’s hard to describe the look that fell across her face. Almost all of the vitality disappeared from her voice. “You have children?” she asked me.

  I shook my head and swallowed, thought about Nevada out in the world, frightened and alone, possibly with my seed growing in her belly.

  Andrea Avery turned her attention on Siobhan. “What about you, pretty girl?”

  Siobhan shook her head as well.

  Andrea Avery sort of grunted.

  “You’ve had trouble with your son, Ms. Avery?” I asked.

  “Andrea, please.”

  “You’ve had trouble with your son, Andrea?”

  “What did you say your names were again?�
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  “I’m Shell. She’s Siobhan.”

  “You’re surely a pretty girl, Siobhan.”

  Siobhan responded with a tiny smile. I cleared my throat. “This is a painful topic for you, Andrea?”

  “One thing I can’t find a bright side for,” she acknowledged.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You might as well come on in.”

  We settled in her small living room. Her unit was clean but not neat. A basket of unfolded laundry was on the sofa, a pile of magazines on the coffee table in front of the sofa, the dish rack in the kitchen by the sink loaded with dishes that had long since dried. She took a spot on the sofa with Siobhan and the laundry. I stood off to the side, looking down at them.

  “Can I offer you folks something to drink?” she asked, edging her bulk forward on the sofa. “A slice of apple pie?”

  Two pies were lined up on the kitchen counter and covered with dish cloths. They had been recently baked and the aroma of cinnamon drifted through the unit. I had a feeling that allowing Andrea Avery to carve slices would make it easier for her to focus on my questions.

  “Just a little piece,” I said, giving Siobhan a nod to accept as well.

  “Little piece? You’re a grown man. Little piece will not do. What about you, pretty girl?”

  “Cover the whole plate if at all possible,” Siobhan said.

  That got Andrea Avery to smile. “I had the same attitude when I was your size. Never thought it would catch up with me. I was a little bitty thing. Seems like forever ago.” She sighed and rocked one, two, three times before building up enough momentum to make it to her feet. “What kind of trouble has he gotten himself into now?” she said as she walked to the kitchen.

  I moved after her, stopped in the kitchen doorway. “You’re used to trouble from him?”

  “From the cradle to now,” she said.

  “That’s a bit surprising. What kind of trouble has he gotten into?”

  She paused from cutting and looked up at us. Siobhan had moved from the sofa and settled by my shoulder. “Shorter answer would be what kind of trouble he hasn’t gotten into,” Andrea Avery said.

  Her tone chilled me.

  “I think he might be involved in something very serious, Ms. Avery.”

  “Andrea,” she said, slicing and not skipping a beat. “Someone he hurt?”

  “Two someones.”

  She nodded and eased one of the slices on a plate. Immediately started with the second.

  “I think he cooked up a fake blackmail scheme,” I said.

  “Blackmail? That doesn’t sound like typical Moses, but I suppose.”

  Siobhan and I said, “Moses?” in unison.

  Andrea Avery handed us the plates of apple pie. My slice was the size of a hardcover novel. For a moment I thought she might not have heard our mutual surprise but then she said, “You probably know him by his street name. Huck.”

  “I’m confused, Ms. Avery.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I’m talking about your son, Noah.”

  “Noah,” she managed, and touched her chest. Her breathing grew labored. Siobhan moved and set her plate on the counter, then placed an arm around Andrea Avery’s prodigious shoulders. She shot me a look hotter than the temperatures around the equator. This was turning into a Candace Holliday type of situation.

  “I didn’t realize you had another son, Andrea,” I said, trying to ignore Siobhan’s glare.

  “Noah’s worse than Moses,” she whispered. “In a different way. He got with that preacher and forgot where he came from. He’s much as told me he disowns me and everything I stand for. Whatever that means.”

  “Could you imagine Noah getting involved in something…shady?”

  “I haven’t talked to Noah in years,” she snapped. “I couldn’t tell you what he would or wouldn’t do.”

  “And Moses?”

  “He comes around from time to time. Always looking to give me some of his dirty money. I would just as soon starve as take it. One son is dead to me and it would be better for the world if the other actually were. I was a good mother, made all kinds of sacrifices. I never would have believed my boys would turn out as they have. Listen to me…let me stop before this turns into an all out complaint. Bright side, see?”

  “Tell me more about Moses.”

  “I have nothing more to say,” she said. “But I can show you. A picture is worth a thousand words.”

  She waddled off down a hall, disappeared into a bedroom.

  Siobhan said, “This never quite goes the way you expect it. Does it?”

  “Hold your judgment,” I said. “This is getting interesting.”

  Those last words had just left my mouth when Andrea Avery emerged from the bedroom and waddled back down the hall toward us. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” she said again, handing an old Polaroid to me. “Only picture I have of the two of them together. I keep it buried at the bottom of my panty drawer.”

  I bit down on my surprise.

  Two boys were staring at me. One was an obviously younger Noah, smiling at the camera. The other was his brother. Not smiling. Old even at that young age.

  Dead Eyes.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I FELT A RUSH of adrenaline as we left Andrea Avery’s apartment, the pulse of a fast and strong heartbeat in my fingertips. For a moment I forgot that Siobhan was with me. Not an easy feat.

  “Will you slow down?” she called after me.

  I stopped so that she could catch up. “Sorry.”

  “What’s going on? Suddenly you’re energized.”

  I reached for her chin and thumbed away a speck of pie crust. “It’s been a long time since I had homemade apple pie.”

  She frowned. “Do I look like a fool to you?”

  I pondered whether to tell her that Moses aka Huck, Andrea Avery’s worrisome son and Noah’s little brother, was the thug I’d christened with the name Dead Eyes. “I’m getting closer,” I offered. “I can feel it.”

  “Really? It feels like nothing but another dead end to me,” she said. “After talking with his mother, seems like Noah Avery’s only real offense has been a desire to forget where he came from. I can relate to that myself.”

  Tell her or not?

  “I need some time to think,” I said. “I’ll figure out a next move.”

  She sighed. “Take me home, Shell. I want to make sure the place looks perfect when Abuela returns.”

  I WAITED A COMFORTABLE amount of time before abandoning my parking spot on Elm Street. Hopefully Siobhan wouldn’t come calling while I was gone. I had a lot of questions for Noah Avery and he would answer all of them.

  MALE. Mid-40s. Cheap corduroy pants but a moderately priced short sleeve dress shirt. The well-worn heels of his shoes bitten into like a hunk of cheese. He was oblivious to all around him, sipping at his coffee every so often, steadily clacking at the keys of his laptop. Unemployed, I decided. Taking a leap of faith to write a novel while he collected unemployment checks.

  “Thank God for Wi-Fi,” I said to him.

  He looked up at me, adjusted his glasses at the centerpiece with a finger whose nail was nearly bitten to the quick. “What was that?” he asked, befuddled.

  “Wi-Fi,” I said. “Thank God for it.”

  He smiled. It was a smile no woman would ever learn to love. “Occasionally I tap in,” he said. “Usually I do so when I need little tidbits of research. Mostly I’m in Word.”

  No ring on any of his fingers. A loner. Nowhere to be.

  “Word?” I said, intentionally frowning.

  “Microsoft’s word processing platform,” he explained.

  “Oh? Are you a writer?”

  He pursed his lips, looked away for a split second, made a decision and looked back. “I’ve gotten some agent interest. Need to finish my manuscript before one will represent me, though.”

  “What kind of books do you write?”

 
“Book,” he corrected. “It’s my first. Crime fiction.”

  I smiled. “Crime fiction.”

  “It’s all escapism,” he said. “I’m guilty of writing in gratuitous violence. The body count gets out of hand sometimes. Nothing like real life. It allows me to figuratively kill off anyone that has ever wronged me. Old bosses, old girlfriends, they show up in my characters and then I do them in. It’s all made up and quite silly. But it’s fun. You know?”

  “Killing people that have wronged you, that does sound like fun,” I said.

  “Totally escapism.”

  “Totally,” I agreed.

  “Do you read the stuff?” he asked.

  I wrinkled my nose, shook my head. “I don’t handle violence very well. Are you almost finished with your book?”

  “Getting there,” he said, tapping the laptop. “I’ve been putting in ten-hour days. Come here, drink my coffee, work on my book. No one bothers me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll let you get back to your work then. Good luck.”

  “I didn’t mean…”

  But I was already walking off, the first piece in place.

  “MAY I LEAVE A message for Mr. Avery to call you back?”

  “Please do. As I said, my company feels as if there are a myriad of opportunities to do business with the Bishop.”

  “I’ll let Mr. Avery know. God bless.”

  I disconnected the call.

  HE CALLED BACK WITHIN five minutes. A very telling development. The prospect of money was foremost on his mind.

  “I understand you were in the middle of preparing for a revival,” I said. “I apologize for disturbing you.”

  “No problem, Mr. MacDonald. Most of the logistics have already been worked out. I was just doing a few last minute touchups.”

  “Good.”

  “I understand you were interested in discussing some potential ventures with Bishop as the cornerstone. Can we meet?”

  “I’ll be flying out of town today. How about when I get back we—”

  “How about today? Before you leave?”

  “I have an afternoon full of meetings. Taking a working break now, enjoying my coffee while I type up a proposal. In a while I’ll get up and let someone else have my seat.”