I clasp my hands over my face.
I took a shower earlier, right before my life imploded, but as I look in the mirror, I feel dirty, ancient, wearing a layer of dark whiskers, my eyes reddened, as if yes, I spent the night face down, clutching that bottle of single malt.
I’ve never had a drinking problem, although maybe I should have, given the disasters of my childhood. It’s possible, however, the loss of Ashley in this timeline drove me to dark, previously off-limits places.
I shave, brush my teeth, wash my face. A couple eyedrops and I’m a close replica of the man I knew.
My closet is devoid of my wife’s clothing. And clearly in this new life, I’ve forgotten how to do laundry.
This version of me isn’t one I want to know.
I find a clean pair of jeans and a button down and realize I don’t have my wallet. It’s still in my jeans, hanging in the bathroom downstairs where I grabbed my morning shower.
The wallet I had when I, yes, went back to 1997.
That still sounds crazy, but given the proof…
I race downstairs and grab the jeans.
A fist forms in my gut as I empty the pockets, find my worn leather wallet and flip it open.
Everything inside me empties as I rifle through it.
It’s gone. The picture I took with Ashley last year at the Mall of America. The shot had been of us on the log chute, a water ride. She’s screaming, her eyes wide, blonde hair flying as she holds onto the bars, spray lifting around us. I’m grinning, my eyes on Ash, so much love in my expression I don’t recognize myself.
Gone, now just a ghost in my memory.
No. This can’t be right. Ashley is still out there.
I just need to find her.
I grab the recycling and head out into the garage and nearly weep at the sight of my 1988 Porsche, black and shiny, sitting the garage. I’ve had it since I bought it out of impound, and worked for hours under the hood to bring her back to life. I get in, the leather warm and familiar, and turn her over. She purrs under my hands.
Finally, someone I know. Someone familiar. A friend.
The station is set on a familiar KQ92, and as I pull out, I turn up the radio, just to drown out the thunder of my heartbeat.
I’m beating out Journey’s Stone in Love on my steering wheel, trying to keep myself from punching it and committing a misdemeanor.
Stay calm. Nothing would be solved by taking out a mailbox on the way to the precinct.
Our neighborhood is surrounded by other vintage craftsman homes, with wide front porches, manicured lawns and the aura of lives lived well. A woman jogging with a stroller lifts her hand to me and I recognize her—Gia, from across the street.
My last memory of Gia was her flirting with Russell, the former Vikings linebacker who lives next door. In that version, Gia was recently separated from Alex, her husband. I wonder who the baby belongs to as I lift a hand back. Apparently, I’m a good neighbor in this version, too. I don’t know why that’s important to me, but the fist in my chest loosens a little.
The sky is bright, the air loose and filled with the scents of summer—freshly cut grass, lilacs still blooming along the street. I drive by the lake on the way to the precinct and for a moment, Eve is sitting beside me.
Her auburn hair is down, taken by the wind through the open window and she’s grinning at me. Her shoes are off, a little paint on her toenails and she’s wearing a blue sun dress. She looks over at me and grins.
I am undone.
I turn off the radio and drive the rest of the way in silence.
The precinct is as familiar as my old Chuck Taylors. Housed in an historic downtown building, made of rose granite, it has a city clock that rises nearly thirty stories above the street and gongs out the late hour of my arrival.
I pull into the lot behind the building and shake away the swift memory of me in my Camaro of yesteryear.
Yesterday.
In fact, it feels as if I was just here as I hoof it inside, past the massive rotunda with the giant King Neptune sprawled in the center. I rub his right toe for luck, then head toward the city police annex and follow the hall down to the conference room.
Twenty-four hours and twenty-plus years ago, I was staring at pictures of the coffee shop bombing victims.
Now, the conference room walls are a collage of names, photographs, timelines, and scene descriptions connected by notes and lines and my own chicken scratchings. I recognize Eve’s name on a few of the reports, her signature above the line, Director, Department of Crime Scene Investigation.
I don’t know why that brings a sigh of relief. At the very least, I know we have the best person on the job.
“You made it,” Burke says, and I turn. He hands me a cup of coffee. “I would have thought you’d wear a suit for the press conference.”
Press conference? Oh no.
“You can borrow one of my suit coats,” he says, then approaches the board. “We got lucky this time. A survivor. Have you talked with her yet?”
There are over a dozen pictures on the wall, all of girls ages fifteen to thirty, and my body turns cold.
What is this?
I approach the board and scan my bad handwriting.
All the girls were strangled, their bodies found in lonely places—a park, an alleyway, a dumpster, an abandoned warehouse. And with every body, a twenty dollar bill with the words thank you for your service, written in black ink.
Right. The Jackson murders. As in Andrew Jackson, from the twenty dollar calling card. I wonder if I coined the name because that feels like something out of the mind of a novelist.
Am I still a novelist?
My gaze falls on a picture. Not Ashley’s—that might have had me gripping my knees, or on the floor, but of…no, please no… I swallow hard.
“John Booker is a victim of the Jackson killer?” His picture is tacked away from the others, and it’s his official mug. He’s in uniform, stars on his shoulder, wearing his badge, salt and pepper hair, keen eyes, his face solemn.
He can see into my soul, so I look away and take a sip of the coffee, hoping it’s bracing.
Burke is frowning at me, so I ask, “I mean, are we sure our evidence is solid on that? It’s such an anomaly.”
“The Chief was pretty sure he’d caught the guy. Who knew he would have wired his house?” Burke is shaking his head even as I’m speed reading the report.
An ambush at the home of a man named Lou Fitzgerald. It killed Chief Booker and wounded two others. And, Fitzgerald is still at large. A loose description of the man is sketched on the board. Over six feet, bearded, hair clipped short, a tattoo on his upper forearm sketched out and added to the profile.
Four murders since then, and the fifth, the survivor, is in a coma in the hospital.
We need to catch this guy. And apparently, I’m in charge.
I take another sip of coffee. It’s bitter but I don’t care. “When is the press conference?”
Burke checks his watch. “Three o’clock. So you have some time.”
Time to get up to speed on a case that I’ve clearly spent thousands of hours and a number of years developing. Fantastic.
“Where is the survivor?”
“She’s at the University hospital.”
I finish off my coffee. “Okay. I’m on my way.”
Burke nods, but a look on his face puts a burr under my skin. “What?”
“Eve will be at the press conference, also, in case there are any questions she needs to answer.”
I turn my expression to stone because frankly, that’s how my chest feels. “That’s not a problem, Burke.”
He nods again. “Maybe tonight, we go a round down at Quincy’s?”
Quincy’s, the boxing gym in north Minneapolis where Burke and I sort out our cases, problems and, once upon a time, my breakups with Eve. I have to wonder how much time I’ve spent there lately. And if any of the bags have Silas O’Roarke’s smug face on them.
La
st I remember, he was married, had a daughter named Cyra. So what was he doing here this morning with my wife? His arm clenched around her shoulders looked like more than moral support, but then again, I believe that Silas has always been waiting in the shadows, ready to swoop in.
Apparently, I’ve cobbled together a make-shift desk in the corner on a long folding table littered with empty coffee cups, file folders and a laptop. I collect the cups, dump them, sit on the office chair, and dig through the files. Names and faces, with detailed officer and forensic reports. No one looks familiar, except one, a female.
Gretta Holmes. The teenager from my box of cold case files in my office at home. Only this one contains a post-it note in Booker’s hand. Victim number one?
Maybe he’s figured out something I haven’t, and added her to our pile of victims.
The one file that’s missing, however, is the only one I currently care about. I get up and go to Burke’s office, trying to figure out words that don’t sound desperate.
Yeah. Right. Who am I kidding?
Burke is sitting in Booker’s old office, the one he had when he was Deputy Chief of Investigations. I take a breath, keep it casual. “Hey, Burke, where’s Ashley’s file? I think I misplaced it.” I stick my hands in my pockets, give him a smile.
He knows me better than this. “Nope. I took it.”
I take a breath because he’s staring me down and I don’t want to throw down right here in his office, but—
His hand goes up to stop me. “You’ve looked at it enough.”
Huh?
Burke gets up, comes around, and sits on the edge of his desk. “Rem. Why do I feel I have to remind you we’ve already had this conversation? It’s not your case, and yes, I know Booker thought it was related to the Jackson murders, but that was just a hunch, one that was…it wasn’t good for you—”
“What’s good for me is trying to figure out what happened to my daughter!” So much for playing it cool. I sense pieces of myself fracturing and I school my voice.
And, I close Burke’s door.
He raises an eyebrow.
“Listen. I just need…” I blow out a breath. “I can’t remember everything and…C’mon man. Let me see her file.”
Burke shakes his head, and a darkness pools in my gut, something that I thought I’d outrun long ago.
The kind of darkness that seeded rumors that may or may not be true about my early days. Only Eve knows what really happened, because she’s the one who helped me corral the darkness, dam it up inside, hoping the pond might drain.
Clearly not.
“Burke.”
He stands up.
Burke is taller than me, and before he joined the force, he was in the army, so he doesn’t flinch easily. He stares at me, his jaw hard. “I know how hard this has been for you. You had everything—your wife, your child, your job—and then it imploded. And yes, you could have handled it differently, but I could have also. I should have pulled you from the case long ago—”
“Give me my daughter’s file. Now.” My voice is almost a growl.
“No. I can’t—”
“She wasn’t your kid!”
His jaw flickers. Then his voice softens. “Okay. But not here. Not now. I need your focus on today’s press conference. Besides, yesterday was hard enough, don’t you think?”
Yesterday. I’m frowning. But we had a birthday party two days ago, so, “You mean her birthday?”
“No,” he says quietly, and my gut twists with his tone. “What’s going on with you, man?”
And then I remember his words, and speak them even as I remember them. “Yesterday was the anniversary of her death.”
He nods as the words hit me, and now my gut is a stone.
Burke gives me a face that tells me that even he is broken by this date. “I told Eve the timing wasn’t good, but she was struggling too. I think she just needs this to be over.”
This. Her family. Her memories. Us.
“Me too,” I say, meaning something completely different.
I turn toward the door. “I hate John Booker for what he did.” I’m not sure where that comes from, because frankly, I’m usually not that raw with my feelings, but it’s better than putting my fist through the glass of the door.
Burke leans his bulk toward me. “What did you say?”
I round on him. “This is all Booker’s fault. If he hadn’t given me that box of cold cases—” And I can’t continue if I hope to keep Burke from walking me out the front door. Or calling 9-1-1.
I need that file. I need this job.
I need something to hold onto.
“What are you sayin’ man? John and you were best friends, all the way to his death. You spoke at his funeral. Not two days ago you told me that you wished you had half his investigative instincts.”
His words stymie me, and strangely, elicit a bloom of warmth inside that I can’t quite place.
Oh, God, it might be hope.
Because my greatest regret—up until this morning at least—was that John Booker, my mentor and I, parted with wrath between us.
“Oh,” I say.
“What cold cases?” Burke asks now.
I shrug, keep my voice easy. “I’m just frustrated that the Jackson killer is still on the loose.” I can still lie fast and hard when I need to. Spent about a decade undercover proving that, but it’s something Eve doesn’t like me to talk about.
Burke is nodding, so I clearly still got it. “Yes. And, didn’t you say that you might have found his first victim, according to Booker’s last notes?”
I nod too. If you say so.
Burke’s phone rings and he pulls out his cell. I make to leave but he holds up his hand. “It’s Sams.”
Kid brother Mulligan. I make a face because it hits me. “Danny’s birthday party. It’s tonight.”
Danny Mulligan held a birthday party every year and invited his entire precinct. After his death, Bets still held the bash in his honor. I’ve never missed it, to my knowledge. How could I? Danny was Eve’s father, and an icon in the force.
Burke is nodding. “I can tell him you’re not going.”
“She probably wouldn’t want me there,” I say to him, to his conversation with Sams.
Burke makes a face, but I pull the door closed behind me and stand in the hallway, the sense of loss bitter in my mouth.
Around me, in the bullpen, a few of my colleagues—some familiar, some not—are eying me like I might be made of diesel and ammonium nitrate.
C’mon, give me a break. I think I’m holding it together rather well.
But if I don’t get some answers…
And then it hits me.
I know exactly who can sort this out.
3
The 1930 Tudor home of watchmaker Arthur Fox is still standing, a couple blocks west of Water street in Stillwater, and I pause at the corner, just taking in the changes.
The first time I saw it, it had a vintage Japanese Maple, in bloom, in the front yard and Hosta that lined the walk. Aged but still stately, a little like its owner, Art, who refused to let me in and told me only that my broken watch was clearly working.
Clearly. Because I saw him again twenty years earlier, and the next day, when said watch began to tick. Art still wasn’t the warmest coat in the closet, but I met his wife, Sheila, who turned out to be a real peach and offered me lemonade without enough sweetener in it.
That time, Art left me with the same cryptic words from the back of the watch, Be Stalwart.
I remember the lemonade as I stare at the house and the addition of a wheelchair ramp at the front steps.
The fist is back in my stomach as I approach.
The air is still, cicadas buzzing as if in warning. A shift of the wind reaps the fragrance of hydrangeas nearby.
I ring the bell.
It bellows deep in the house, something mournful and appropriate. The inner door opens and the bars on the outer door dissect a woman’s body. “Can I help you
?”
She’s in her mid-twenties, maybe, with blonde hair, cut short, and kind eyes. She’s wearing a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt, her feet bare.
I’m jarred, and for a second, I lose my words. Maybe Art doesn’t live here—
“Meggie, who is it?”
The voice is gnarled, crabby and I’m so relieved I even smile. “I’m looking for Arthur Fox.”
She considers me. “Why?”
“I need to talk to him about my broken watch.”
“Dad doesn’t fix watches anymore.” She cocks her head, folding her arms over her chest.
“He’ll fix mine.” I don’t mean to be rude, but really, this is between Art and me. And Father Time, apparently.
“I highly doubt that,” Meggie says.
“Meggie, who is it?”
“Some guy who wants you to fix his watch—”
“Be Stalwart. Tell him that.”
She rolls her eyes and leaves, shutting the door.
Huh. Like father like daughter, because I’m standing on the stoop without a clue what to do.
I’m about to knock again when the door reopens. “He remembers you. You can talk to him, but not for long. He’s tired.”
He didn’t sound tired when he was shouting at her from across the house, but I bite my tongue and head inside.
Twenty years and a couple days ago, the house was beautiful. Dark crown moldings and arched doorways, gleaming narrow planked pine wood flooring that hosted leather overstuffed chairs and a piano in the corner.
Not anymore.
The piano is still there, but the furniture is mostly gone, and sitting in the middle of the room, staring at a box television, is a man I barely recognize.
He’s in a wheelchair and the ramp suddenly makes sense.
Art is just as frail as before, but his back is bowed and his hands sit on the arms of the chair like an afterthought. A belt circles his chest, holding him in place. He’s wearing a pair of sweatpants and a shirt that sags over his bony frame.
The redolence of pipe smoke is gone, but I do pick up the faint odor of ammonia and antiseptic. A bag hangs beside his chair.
What happened?
He looks at me, and something sparks in those eyes. They widen and his mouth opens. “Stalwart?”
No Unturned Stone Page 2
