Inside, the room was still. The bedsheets still tangled on the bed same as they were earlier. The incense was stronger, but none was burning. Something felt off. No caller ID box, but that was a long shot in a dorm room. Her cell phone, though, was sitting on the bedside table. I picked it up, scrolled through recent calls. A couple from the sleepy guy’s dorm room where Ian had been staying. Others from several campus numbers.
Sometimes it took a few moments to catch what you were not looking for, especially when someone has tried mighty hard to hide it.
They missed a smear.
On the far wall behind Heather’s bed, someone had tried to wipe it off, but a stray hair glued to the wall by congealed blood. I checked the floor beneath. Another few drops further down. None on the carpet.
I checked the closet. All clothes accounted for, as far as I could tell, no evidence of a mad dash. I checked the stuffed dragon where Heather kept her stash. I slipped my fingers into its mouth, down his throat. The stuff was there. That’s when I panicked.
The carpet ended near the door, became tile. I checked closer, saw a couple of drops of blood had been wiped into the grout between the tiles, absorbed. Nothing they could do without a mop and some bleach. They didn’t have the time.
A clean scene. I wondered how they got both Heather and Ian out. One was hurt, maybe dead, and the other scared shitless? Or was there a body still here, one they would come back for later?
The second bed. I hadn’t even thought about it. Hadn’t seen the roommate earlier in the day, a detail I glossed over except when Heather had mentioned her—”Did you forget your key again?”
The other bed was made up nice and pretty, lavender comforter spilling over the sides to the floor. I got down on my hands and knees, lifted it. A dead blonde girl’s eyes wide, gray, looking back at me. No body, only her head. I scooted my ass across the floor until I thumped the wall.
I stayed curled up for a minute, trying to calm down. Steeling myself for another look because I thought something else was beside the head, under her hair. I’d seen dead people plenty of times, plenty of nasty situations. Never a young innocent girl dead all because of me. The open eyes accused.
When my nerves stopped jangling, I crawled back to the other bed and lifted the comforter again, took a closer look. Her mouth, open but not bloody. The neck wound looked sharp at first, then ragged. The first slice hadn’t done the job. They had to saw through. But again, no blood. Her hair was wet. Made me think they’d killed her in the shower, but the girls’ bathrooms here were communal. They had done this somewhere else, which meant they’d caught her much earlier, which meant they had been watching me when I spoke to Ian that afternoon.
There were two Polaroids under the head. I slipped them out, the head wobbling a little. One was of Heather and Ian in this room, sitting on the bed, bruised faces in a dark room. The flash made them wince. The other was the blonde girl, a different background. She was gagged, tied-up, crying. Behind her, visible from the chest down, her assassin, holding a hunting knife, same type I carried in my truck.
Cop 101. In this situation, you:
A) continue your investigation alone until you have enough evidence to solve on your own.
B) call the local police in town, confess what you’ve done (because your DNA is all over Heather’s bed) and what you know so far, most likely ending up in jail.
C) cover your ass after suddenly remembering that your one true love is on her way into a trap.
“Drew.” Son of a bitch, they knew about Drew. The fucking gig was a smokescreen. I checked my watch: eight-fifteen. Pretty sure she had been at the club for an hour or so by then. No fucking way.
I almost headed for the door at a dead run, but the blonde girl’s eyes reminded me I had a decision to make. No time to waste. No idea where the Asian fuckers were, or how they got back into town. The blonde girl’s body was probably in the back of the SUV already when I chased them away. Why the hell offer me money then? Maybe they expected to lure me out into the trees and slice me open. Just get rid of everyone who had any idea in one afternoon. Any other witnesses, like Sheryl, would say, “A couple of Asian guys” but not be able to add much detail.
Fucked me over. Here I thought I was the smart guy.
Eventually someone would wonder what happened to the girls who lived in this room, but I was hoping not that night. Looked in the closet, found a fleece-lined windbreaker. It was good enough. I lifted the head, the skin foreign to the touch, wet and plastic. Laid it on the fleece, and zipped up to get that dead stare off me. Wrapped the sleeves around once, then tied the ends, pulled tight until I was sure she wouldn’t fall out.
I took the back stairs out, put the head in my trunk, then entered the dorm building again through the propped-open door. I needed to show myself so the smart girl at the desk wouldn’t get suspicious. So back to the desk, where she was doing homework.
“What class is it for?”
“Ethics,” she said. “I don’t get it.”
“All based on the golden rule, isn’t it? Do for others and etc.?”
She shrugged. “I guess. Hey, where’s the witness?”
“His girlfriend hasn’t seen him in a while. Guess he forgot.”
She set her elbows on her book and leaned closer. “Maybe I can help. Who is it?”
She sees you’re distracted, trembling. Calm down.
“Sorry, but that would break confidentiality.”
“Hey, I can call the head of res life, you could talk to her. She knows everybody.” The girl reached for the phone. I covered her hand before she could lift the handset.
I told her, nice low voice, “It’s okay. Not that big a deal. No one’s in trouble or anything. Someone will try again tomorrow. What’s your name?”
“Michelle.”
“Oh, that’s a sweet name. Mee-chelle, my bell.”
She giggled. “Quit it.”
I thought of someone on the local police force that looked a lot like me. Several, in fact. Then I messed up one of the names just enough so she would be sure. “I’m Officer Van Dovercooke. You give me a call and we’ll set up a ride along. I’ll show you the exciting side of Marshall.” Then a wink.
She melted. “I can do it Friday. I’m not going home this weekend.”
I rapped my knuckles on the desk. “Give me a ring.”
*
Maybe she would call, but she would get the name wrong. She would insist. She would be asked questions, and those questions would embarrass her. She would say she must have misunderstood and hang up. Or, more likely, forget about it by morning.
I didn’t care. I fought to keep from jogging to my car, even tougher in the needle-sharp wind chill while I was sweating. Cell phone to my ear, getting nothing but voicemail at Drew’s number. Once in and cranked, I U-turned and got on the highway as fast as I could. Faster still up to Pale Falls, burying the needle. At some point calling the station would’ve been a sweet idea, let the night guys call ahead to Minneapolis PD and have them check the club’s address. Then maybe buzz Marshall PD to start the search for Ian and Heather. But I didn’t do any of that. All I thought about was Drew.
The roads were still iced over. I felt the tires slide a couple of times but powered through the drift. I’d told Ian he didn’t know anything about loving Drew. That I was the one who really cared. So why didn’t I get someone on the horn to make sure she was safe? I justified it by saying I had more info than anyone else at that point, and that to confess one thing meant having to confess ten things, and I wasn’t sharp enough that night to lie solidly about every step. I loved my freedom more than Drew. I hated myself for that. If I made things right, then I had everything I wanted.
Happiest fucking asshole on earth.
A couple of radio calls asked me to check in. They wanted me to pay a visit to some old folks who thought there was a meth lab in the woods behind their home. You and everyone else, I thought. Ignored the radio. Done it before, will do it again. Just a
nother lecture from Graham.
I made the turn onto 212 and slid into the oncoming lane, nearly lost it. No cars on the road, my performance only for the folks behind the counter at the corner gas stations. The dash clock closed in on ten til nine.
You’re too late. You’re losing time. If they’ve got her, you’ve fucked up and the trail is getting cold.
Sometimes the right thing is too hard to do.
When three kids die on your watch, there’s no place in the country you can hide.
I picked up the radio handset. Stared ahead while driving. Nothing oncoming, black except for the moonlight on the snow, glowing. Keyed the button and called in my sign.
“Where are you?”
“Suspicious activity on 212, checked out a van. Listen…”
You believe in coincidence?
“Billy, you there?”
My headlights shone on Drew’s little car, snow-dirty, parked on the shoulder of the opposing lane.
“I’m here. Nothing to report.”
“Man up towards Montevideo called again. Saw lights in the woods.”
“Tell him to wait.”
I keyed off and slid onto the shoulder, pushed the door open against the wind and slipped across the road to her car. Plenty of these little imports up here, the college students second car, usually. All-wheel drive good in the snow. I knew it was hers from the bumper stickers—Social Distortion, The Reverend Horton Heat, Guana Batz. Plus the dent on the rear panel caused by some asshole who claimed it was Drew’s fault. I had to convince him, forcefully, to pay up. He did, but she spent it on her bass amp instead.
When I was closer, I saw that the right rear tire was flat. Drew wasn’t in the car. Her guitar case took up most of the backseat, Taco John wrappers scattered on the floorboard. I tried the driver’s door. Unlocked. Her keys were gone, but some warmth lingered. Where the hell was she?
I could’ve called in an emergency, suffered through the rigmarole in order to get help. Or I could call in sick. Head home. Ditch the cruiser. Arm up and go hunting in my big red pick-up truck. Thing was like a tank, seven years old, beat to hell but still running strong.
I dropped into my front seat and made a decision. One more time with the handset radio. “Must be something I ate, but I’m going to head home and take a shit.”
EIGHT
I turned into my driveway doing sixty, faster still to the house before braking and skidding, inches from the side door. Out in a hurry, thinking of what I needed—pistol, but not my service issue. A shotgun, sawed-off. My revolver, .357 snubbie, good back-up piece. And my hunting knife. Wear all black and go after the little fuck who introduced Ian to the Asians, wake his ass up and make him show me all the places he’d met these guys. Cut off a finger every time he made a noise in protest.
The snow I’d kicked up drifted back over me as I rounded the front of the cruiser, reached for the screen door.
“Billy.” A strained female voice. It was coming from the darkness behind the house. My pistol was already in my hands, a reflex. Finger on the trigger.
Again. “Billy!”
And there was Drew, stage make-up running down a pale, chilled face. Arms wrapped tightly around her chest, her satin blouse and leather mini-skirt not enough to protect her from the cold. She was running towards me. I dropped the gun into the snow and embraced her. She shivered, chattered her teeth telling me, “Th-th-they’re all dead. Jesus-s-s-s, all dead.”
“Who’s dead?”
“Th-th-the band. Band. Killed-d-d the band.”
“You saw them?”
“I walked in.” She stepped back, stamped her feet, looked me in the eye. “Blood. Two of them didn’t have…” She paused, swallowed. “Didn’t have heads. Kyle was tied up, screaming. He saw me, screamed for help. I didn’t know what to do. I heard people scrambling, gibberish, something foreign. One came out of nowhere, reached for my purse. I just dropped it. My phone, my money, just dropped it and ran. The car was a block up but I made it. They were so close. They tried to get me out of the car, tried to break the glass, but I was too fast. I think I jumped the curb and ran over some beer bottles, cut the tire. I kept going until the rims hit the road. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You should’ve called the police.”
She looked at me like I’d just told her to swallow her fist. “I didn’t have my phone.”
“Then you should’ve found a cop. Do you know what could’ve happened to you? Jesus, girl, you could’ve lost your fucking head!” All I was doing was scaring her further. I lowered my voice, nice and easy. “Why didn’t you stay by the car? You could’ve been hurt walking all this way.”
“What if they were after me? What about that? I…I needed to keep moving.” She started crying, sounded like she couldn’t breathe. I was able to understand, “My god, Billy, what’s going on?”
I took her in my arms again and aimed her towards the house, led her inside.
*
Her stage clothes were icy, the sweat and river valley moisture freezing in the wind. I gave her some sweatpants and a thick flannel shirt, helped her get into them. Then I wrapped her in my great-grandmother’s quilt and eased her into my recliner facing the wood burning stove. After boiling her a cup of hot tea with honey, I knelt beside her and tried to get more details.
“It wasn’t a club, was it? A warehouse?”
She nodded. “I went in the front. If I’d pulled around to the side like the band, they would’ve jumped me.”
“So they expected you?”
“It was because I parked a block up—”
“Yeah, you said.”
“I don’t know why they didn’t kill everyone and grab me when I walked inside.”
“Maybe Kyle told them you’d be along closer to the time of the gig. They wouldn’t be looking for you.”
She shook harder, the thought of her drummer stalling on her behalf working its way in. “You think so?”
“What choice did they have? Kyle must’ve said he knew something they wanted, something about you, or they would’ve killed him much sooner.”
“It doesn’t make any sense.”
I rubbed the quilt over her arm. She was right. If these guys had wanted her dead, she’d be dead. Maybe they didn’t expect her to escape, though. No reason to keep the drummer alive unless it was to help put pressure on her.
Pressure for what?
What did Ian and Drew have in common besides each other?
You, Lafitte.
Which also didn’t make any sense.
“You get a look at these guys? Any descriptions?”
She closed her eyes, made a face. “I don’t wanna.”
“It’s important. Be a trooper. Fight through it.”
A deep breath later she said, “One was Chinese. The first one I saw. The guy who tried to break my window was white. I think he had very short hair, but he was wearing a cap.”
“See the cap for me, sweetie.”
She strained, eyes shut tighter, nostrils flaring. “I don’t know. It was…old. It was black. It had a gold French thing on it. I don’t know what they’re called.”
“A fleur-de-lis?”
“Yeah, that curly thing. I think you’ve got one.”
A New Orleans Saints cap in Minneapolis on someone trying to roust Drew.
“I don’t want to say anymore. I’m too cold,” she said.
I patted her arm and stood, told her I’d be right back. Something was clicking and whirring in my head. Something about the Polaroid of the college girl, which I’d left in the cruiser. As I opened the screen, she said, “Don’t leave! Don’t, please.”
I looked back. She’d sat up, the quilt falling off, fingernails clawing the armrests.
“You’re safe. I’m safe. No one’s coming. I need something out of my truck, and I’ll be right back.”
“Hurry.”
“You bet.” I reached for my gun to reassure her. It wasn’t in its holster. Then I remembered I’d dr
opped it. I saw it through the screen. My hand tremored but I shoved it into my pants pocket. “Like a hummingbird.”
*
Outside I lifted the gun and shook the wet off it. It was freezing, aching my hand. I dumped it into its holster, then opened the trunk of my cruiser. The windbreaker and head had rolled around some, but was still a tight package. I found the photos and looked at the crying girl, the man behind her holding a knife that looked like mine. It had been passed down from my dad to me when I was ten. The night before he planned taking me on my first hunting trip, he’d shown it to me, explained how to keep it safe, how to hold it, how not to. Same with the little .22 rifle so I could shoot squirrels. He and his older brother would be hunting deer. Too bad I was coming down with the flu. I still wanted to go, but was too feverish and achy, I tried to hold it together and promised I’d be ready to go come four in the morning.
He didn’t have the heart to wake me, so he left twenty bucks so Mom could buy me a toy instead. I had really wanted to go and kill squirrels. Maybe that’s why I eventually became a cop—because I never went hunting with my dad. He was killed a year later in an accident at work, fell off a girder at the power plant he was wiring.
The knife meant a lot to me. I usually socked it in the bedside table at night. But I’d left it in my big red truck after getting duped into that ice fishing trip with Tordsen and Graham a couple months ago. Wouldn’t be doing that again. Nothing like being out on the Gulf or up tiny creeks all over South Mississippi in a boat. Ice fishing was more boring than hockey. Even the beer tasted boring.
I punched the remote control for the first bay of my garage. If I’d only checked the truck this morning instead of leeching off the county, using my cruiser for “personal use”. The light flickered, never worked properly. I walked to the cab seeing everything in horror-movie strobe. The tiny triangle window on the passenger side, smashed. All it took then was a stick to hit the lock lever. I opened the door, glass pebbles all over the floorboard. I checked the contents of my glove compartment, the armrest compartment, saw the stereo. Everything still there. I leaned the passenger seat forward, opened the panel to the backseat of the quad cab. Lifted the bench seat to the space beneath where I kept the jack, the air compressor, a .22 pistol, and on this last occasion my hunting knife.
Yellow Medicine Page 7
