Eating Crow (The Birdman Series Book 1)

by Hayton, Lee

  No, strike that. It gained Coby sore feet and a graze on her arm. Great.

  She tried to kick them off, but the buckles held them safely on. Her ankles were slightly swollen from having stood half the night. Forlornly waiting for someone to be a gentleman and offer her a seat. Finally, she’d planted her insecure ass on the lawn because every male she knew was a disrespectful A-hole.

  As she pressed her shoulder against the brickwork for balance, Coby bent forward and lifted her right foot. The tiny straps were already started to feather apart, the sparkling black pleather curling where the tiny stitches had loosened. The backing felt like cardboard, and it rammed up into her nail bed when she poked her fingers in the wrong place.

  Stupid shoes. Stupid heels. When she’d been ten, Coby had sworn she’d never force her feet into the tight, high shoes that warped her mother’s feet and caused her aunt’s early onset arthritis. No, she was too clever and too feminist to wear that stupid shit.

  For a moment, she sobbed. Overwhelmed with pity for the girl she could have been if her hormones hadn’t started raging. That girl had been lost when, at age thirteen, Coby realized she was in a humiliating competition with every other hetero female in her school. If she didn’t fulfill her potential by putting the effort in, it was a competition she’d lose.

  At last, the buckle released the strap and Coby pulled the shoe off, letting it fall to the grimy pavement. She was tempted to just leave it there, let some homeless skank toss it into her shopping trolley, but she’d spent money on them—good money—so she stooped to pick it up again. Working the buckle on her left-hand shoe was even harder with one shoe already in hand, and she lost her balance again. Felt her body tip too far past the point of equilibrium, a moment before her shoulder thumped down on the hard concrete.

  She’d dressed in her nicest outfit, she’d worn her brand-new shoes, and now look. Lying in the gutter like a piece of discarded garbage.

  Coby started to cry in earnest. Her earlier dismay a mere foreshadowing of her present grief.

  When she’d left the comfort of the bar to seek out Dylan, who was meant to be getting her something to eat, something to settle ever-present nausea, she’d found him with his tongue buried in that slut Natalie’s mouth.

  She’d stared, horrified, until they broke apart. A thin line of saliva between their mouths caught and reflected the fairy lights. The sight brought Coby’s dinner rolling up the back of her throat to spatter out in disgusting patterns on the grass. Her friend Maisie was there, trying to pull her away. When Coby shrugged her off, she went back inside, a trill of giggles following like a sarcastic wake.

  They’d been friends since elementary school. Except, if they shared the love of true friends, then Coby wouldn’t be lying alone in a gutter in the middle of the night with no way home except for Uber. A vehicle she couldn’t call because her inferior phone didn’t even have a single bar for reception.

  Tears had been coming easily to Coby for a while now. Ever since she tentatively told Dylan that her appointment at the family planning clinic had contained “Good News,” she’d cried at the drop of a hat. Or the tongue-crammed French kiss of a cheating boyfriend.

  The pavement was too hard to lie comfortably. Every piece of Coby’s body wounded in the fall began to cry in dismay. Coby rolled onto her hands and knees and forgot about crying for long enough to push herself upright. She snaked her arm through the back strap of each shoe and let them dangle there—the world’s largest bracelets.

  Her first tentative step without the tilt of three-inch heels was bliss. By the time she reached the corner, her bare feet were reporting each isolated stone, each distressed piece of asphalt. She needed a ride home, or her feet would be in ribbons.

  Coby pulled out her mobile phone and looked at the screen. Still no reception. There was a cellphone tower two streets over that should easily have her within broadcast range but not according to her icon.

  She tapped on the Uber app anyway, but it just whirred for a minute then said, “No connection.” Her kid sister Taylor must’ve been using it behind her back again, running through all her data. If Coby ever managed to get home tonight, she’d give her a frightful punch in the arm as a present. Maybe more. Maybe as many awful punches as it took to hurt Taylor’s arm the Coby’s feet would hurt by the time she snuck in through the back door.

  An overwhelming wave of tiredness pulled at her, and Coby staggered on her feet again. There’d been cheap wine at the party, dispensed from a cask with a dozen bladder refills lined up behind it. Coby usually only drank beer, and it didn’t take much of that to knock her sideways.

  She shouldn’t be drinking at all. The family planning clinic had been clear on that front—at least until she decided what to do—but she’d needed some anesthetic against the pain Dylan had inflicted. Wine had been the only painkiller on offer.

  The street light above her head suddenly shattered in a frightening burst of sparks. The road around her darkened. Coby ran forward into the next circle of light, looking back over her shoulder at the darkened pole. Street lights must blow out all the time. Don’t be a wuss!

  The tiredness was now digging into her. Her arms hung loosely at her sides, resisting any effort to swing them. Coby blinked, and it was only when her big toe stubbed against the pavement that she realized her eyes were still closed. She forced her lids apart.

  The street light above her head glowed bright, brighter, then shattered. It spilled hot plastic rain down upon Coby’s head. She felt one of the shards land in her hair, burning briefly, but couldn’t muster the strength to raise her hands and brush it away.

  She stopped walking, scared her feet would get cut up. The tiredness grew so strong that she sank to her knees. The concrete bit into her soft skin. Her short dress didn’t offer any protection, but her need to rest overpowered her need for comfort. Coby put her hands out and lowered her body further, so she lay submissively on her side on the disgusting, dirty tarmac.

  I’ll just rest for a moment. I can walk home later and just skip school tomorrow.

  It wouldn’t be the first time.

  She felt hands dragging her into a doorway, out of the way. Coby was so bone-tired now she couldn’t even open her eyes to look. A dirty blanket pressed down around her shoulders. She snuggled into the warmth.

  “Did you have a nice day, punkin?” a memory of her father asked. A day out waiting for a firework display and she’d fallen asleep before she saw anything. Eight year’s old. He must have put her in the back of the car. All she knew was she was now home, and he was waking her up so she could go inside to her soft bed.

  Coby smiled and happily murmured, not forming any words.

  “Why you’re just plain tuckered out!” her father exclaimed and lifted her into his arms.

  Cold hands closed around her throat. For a moment, the terrifying kick of adrenalin woke Coby enough for her eyes to flick open. She tried to reach her arms up to tear in fear at the hands cutting off her breathing. They were inadequate to the task and lolled powerless by her side.

  Her throat was squeezed tighter and tighter. Coby let the overwhelming pull of tiredness take her again. Her submissive body tilted back, forced down against the indifferent concrete.

  She was too tired for her chest to even try to pull in air. Her eyes bulged with the force, her lids squeezing open, but seeing nothing but terrifying darkness.

  “Let’s get you up to your bed,” her father said, and Coby let him pull her safely into the dream. “Tomorrow I’ll make pancakes for breakfast.”

  Pancakes were her favorite.

  A last-ditch attempt by her brain to live shot chemicals out into her body. Coby jumped. Her father staggered backward and looked around, then Coby saw the fireworks display in the sky.

  They were putting it on again because she’d slept through it the first time. Starbursts of red, orange, and bright shining yellow exploded in the dark night sky. Coby held her breath at the beauty. Held her breath.

&n
bsp; Fire in the sky, pancakes for breakfast, and her long-absent father cradling her lovingly to his chest.

  CHAPTER NINE

  By the time Victoria walked into the station house her eyes were bleary from the lack of sleep.

  “Looking good, Collins,” Stanton quipped as she stumbled into the side of his desk when trying to walk by. “Frat parties keeping you up?”

  She flipped him the bird and continued past to the corner desk that had been hastily cleared of filing for her to use. The files were now piled haphazardly on the floor behind her. Because nothing says welcome back like shifting around some stationery.

  “Find anything?” Arbeck asked. He perched on the side of her desk, a terrible threat to its structural integrity.

  “Nothing much. There was a person—Tessa Aaronson—who thought they may have been a witness to the third victim. However, the notes say the witness who was supposed to corroborate her story said it was a different week. I don’t think she’s in too much danger.”

  She didn’t think any witness would be in any danger. Victoria felt certain Miranda had been ruthlessly targeted. Not because she had a prior connection, although that may be a factor, but because she fit the profile.

  If Miranda hadn’t carelessly got herself knocked up, would a copycat have bothered?

  Victoria didn’t think so. It was the congruence of events that would have made the kill fulfilling. Not the chance to wipe out someone nobody at the station even remembered interviewing.

  “The Captain wants us to go back down to Waters Street and start trolling for witnesses. Once you write up your findings from yesterday, give us a yell, and we’ll go.”

  He stood up, and Victoria put out her hands to stop her files from tipping over. There wasn’t even a computer hooked up. She’d had to manually sort through the original statements, scanning for connections where she would usually have used Ctrl-F to search.

  Trolling for witnesses was a bitch of a task at the best of times. Trying to find people to come forward when nobody had even noticed the dead body for days was a fool’s errand. Victoria wondered why Haggerty had been so keen for her to come on board if all he planned to use her for was humiliating retribution for real or imagined slights.

  The old anger was back. The irritation that no matter how much money the department paid Victoria and how much overtime superior officers wrangled for the troops, the police didn’t want to listen to her opinions. “Do the work and come back with the conclusion I’m expecting,” may as well have been the extent of her employment agreement. “Bring me something I can package out to the newspapers. Somebody, they can plead out in court.”

  Don’t bring me the right thing if it’s trouble.

  “Have you seen this, Collins?” Arbeck called over. He swung his monitor toward her, but the light hit it at such an angle all she could see was a gray reflection. She walked closer while he fiddled with the mouse. “I can’t get the sound to work.”

  Stanton leaned over him and pushed a button to the side of the monitor. A volume icon appeared onscreen at the same time a voice came booming out, “and now with this latest victim, it’s just further proof.”

  The voice sounded familiar, and as Victoria used her body to block out the early morning sunlight, she realized why. Gregory Mancini’s mom was on the screen, leaning forward to speak directly into a boom mic that had been shoved toward her. “My son was an innocent victim, as much as any of those girls. A corrupt and lazy investigation staffed by corrupt and lazy detectives are the reason he’s dead.”

  “What’s this on?” Victoria asked.

  “Every channel,” shot back Arbeck. “It’s got a featured spot on all the online papers, and there are links from the main channels too. I don’t think her case is being dismissed anytime soon.”

  “It will as soon as her lawyers hear the facts,” Victoria said. She was pleased that her voice sounded so even when inside her stomach was knotting. She rubbed at her eye where the familiar twitch was starting up again. “Have you been called in?”

  Stanton shook his head at the same time Arbeck nodded. Victoria watched as they fought a short battle in expression, then Stanton gave a shrug. “Yeah, the lawyers told us to keep ourselves available. Not like we were heading overseas, was it?”

  “Don’t know what help we’ll be, anyhow,” Arbeck said. Victoria was inclined to agree. No help at all, sometimes. “We weren’t anywhere near the action.”

  “I imagine that’s exactly what she wants to hear,” Victoria said. This time her control slipped, and her voice box cracked on the last word. She coughed to try to cover it. “They’ll be wanting you to talk all about the evidence stacked up in a neat little row against Malcolm Carter and how nothing pointed to her son.”

  “Except a dead teenager,” Stanton said. There was a flush in his cheeks that Victoria was glad to see. “The judge should never have allowed the bloody thing to get this far.”

  “Now, now,” said Arbeck. “If our citizens aren’t allowed to waste our time and taxpayer money with lawsuits, we may as well be Canadian.”

  Victoria laughed, happy for twisted humor to make an appearance for once. “Do you want to head out?” she asked. “There’s almost nothing to put into a statement, and I’d rather get out on the street.”

  “Nothing like the smell of homeless in the morning,” Arbeck agreed, tossing his jacket over his arm. “Come on Stanton, you know you love it really.”

  #

  “What did the CCTV show?” Victoria asked as they headed away. “Weren’t you reviewing it yesterday?”

  “Showed bugger-all,” Stanton said. “But Captain is convinced that someone will have seen something.”

  Victoria looked out of the window as the streets crossed over the poverty line. “He really thinks someone noticed a girl being murdered but didn’t bother to tell anyone?”

  “I don’t know what he thinks, these days,” Stanton answered. “I suppose it’s possible that someone saw her there afterward and can help us pinpoint a time.”

  “If the CCTV couldn’t do that for you, I doubt a group of vagrants can help.”

  “I believe the term is homeless,” Arbeck interjected. “And they were probably going to call it in as soon as the voices told them to.”

  The crime scene was unremarkable. A piece of yellow tape was still attached to the bars on the shop window, left behind when the rest was torn away. Victoria twisted it between her fingers until it came away and twisted it into a ball.

  “OCD much?” Arbeck said, and she blushed.

  “We’ve already talked to the owner of this place and the pawnshop guy,” Stanton said, pointing across the road. “The other shops don’t even have a view out to the street.”

  The windows for the line of abandoned-looking shops were all heavily covered with sign-writing. A perfect way to stop any nosy passers-by from peering in and seeing something they shouldn’t.

  “Did we get the tapes from across there?” Victoria asked. She pointed to where cameras were mounted outside the shops opposite.

  “Live feeds,” Arbeck said. “Security guys monitor them while the places are open and while they’re not, nobody cares.”

  She walked into the recessed doorway, but the lonely alcove had no more secrets to reveal. A pile of dead fall leaves rustled in a corner, trapped there by the wind. When she swept her foot through them, scattering them in a liberating arch back to the sidewalk, nothing lay hidden beneath.

  “There’s a bridge around the corner,” Arbeck said, pointing in the direction he meant. “A few regulars hang out there. And opposite the T intersection at the end there,” he pointed again. “There’s an empty lot that’s turned into a tent city.”

  Stanton shrugged, sporting a look of boredom that verged on indifference. “May as well start.”

  “Could I borrow the plain wrap car for a few minutes?” Victoria asked as they started walking. “I just want to drop by somewhere. Since you’ll be tied up here for a while, anyhow.”
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  “Let me guess,” he said, voice low and gruff. “The helpline?”

  “Got it in one.” Victoria took another step besides him, then another. “Come on, Stanton. You know Haggerty will leave it to the last minute to have anything to do with that place. I already know some of the guys there. It’ll literally take me ten minutes to drop in and see what’s what. It’s just around the corner.”

  He tossed the keys in his hand, and when she reached for them snatched them back with a humiliating smirk.

  “Walk then,” he said curtly and sped up to walk in step with Arbeck.

  #

  The depressing furnishings of the helpline spoke volumes about the city’s value for the service. Funded by a few over-eager benefactors, and the eternal kindness of the volunteers, the helpline offices clung anxiously onto life.

  Inside his drab overseer’s office, Ray Wertzler monitored the three screens in front of him. At any time, he could pull up a current call to listen or intercede, or retrieve any phone call that had occurred within the past week.

  There was no official requirement to record calls and keep a log file, but Ray did it so that if a client turned up dead, everyone could learn from it. Up to one week. That was the most they could manage in their inferior storage system. Past one week, if a client turned up dead that was on them.

  Ray had already warned her that he wouldn’t be able to let her listen to live calls or help her to identify any callers who matched the detailed parameters she gave. Still, he’d agreed to shift any temporary recordings that fit the bill onto a flash drive. And there it would sit, awaiting a warrant telling him to hand it over. That was if he could find any calls that matched the description she’d given him. A description he already knew well from their past encounters.

  Given his occupation, Victoria was confident that her under-the-table requests would be safely stowed behind closed lips. She sat next to Ray in his office, the recipient of nine pairs of watchful eyes, while he scanned through the calls they’d received.