Roadrunner

by Michael Lilly

What little adrenaline I have left flares to life as soon as I see my house more clearly. Bringing back memories of our entire reason for leaving Riverdell, my front window, the one that sits above the kitchen sink, has been broken. There’s no glass shimmering on the ground in front; it was broken inward.

  Before I’m aware of it, my legs have carried me up the front pathway to the door. It’s unlocked. I ease it inward and nearly shit myself when I spot a man hunched over the kitchen table, but I realize soon that it’s Todd. My pants are safe.

  “Holy shit, are you okay?” I say.

  He nods. “It’s the same thing as last time,” he says. He hands me a note, bent in places where it wrapped around the brick’s corners. It has the exact same message as before, check boxes and all.

  “We considered when we came here that we might run into some of that,” I say.

  “No. The exact same thing. They followed us here. They found us.”

  “Jesus …”

  Todd nods. As usual, he maintains a measure of sobriety and level-headedness most could only hope to achieve in such a situation.

  “What do we do?” I ask.

  “I don’t know if I’m comfortable staying here,” he says in his gentle, steady way. “It was one thing in Riverdell, but if they’re willing to follow us all the way out here, they must mean business. Not just your average homophobe harassing the local queens on a dare. Whatever their end goal is, they’re taking it seriously.”

  I set the note beside the red brick on the table.

  “Fuck …”

  Todd says nothing, and nods.

  “Were you here when it happened?”

  “Yeah, but as usual, I wasn’t able to see who it was. Gone with the wind, that one was.”

  “Quite frankly, my dear, I give all the damns.”

  “So, what now?” says Todd.

  In response, my phone rings.

  “Thorn!”

  “Evening, Chief.”

  “So Kent and Simpson went to the Romero house.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Andre wasn’t there. Neither was the son. Mrs. Romero says they went camping.”

  “Do you think she believes that?”

  “Not a chance. Anyway, we contacted Albuquerque PD and the New Mexico police to head off every graveyard within a hundred miles. We also put out an EPB for his vehicles in addition to any maroon vans, plates or no plates. You got anything else I should know?”

  “Nothing solid yet, sir.”

  “Let me know if you find anything, yeah?”

  “Will do.”

  I terminate the call. Todd looks at me, eyebrows raised.

  “That didn’t sound good,” he says.

  “Indeed not. Our prime suspect disappeared. Along with his son, who may be his next victim.”

  “So … what now?”

  Now? Ideally, I want to climb into bed with Todd and forget that the rest of the world exists. I want for Officer Kent to find and apprehend Romero Sr., and for Romero Jr. to be returned home safely. I ache for the swift resolution of our current conflicts, for the bastard tormenting us to get caught and charged, and for the impending storm to hammer away at the windows while Todd and I actively ignore the collective human existence.

  However, life, even at its most accommodating, is not so generous.

  “I think we need to go,” I say, “as much as I know you can handle yourself. I would feel a lot better if you weren’t in the house for a while, and we don’t really have a place for either of us to lie low here until we can pay it more attention. What do you think?”

  “I think I’ll wear my brown pants.”

  He kisses me on the cheek and walks to the bedroom, emerging a minute later, wearing his brown pants.

  He slings a bag over his shoulder and nods to it. “Essentials. Shall we go?”

  “That we shall,” I say.

  Todd drives; my number of consecutive hours spent awake is steadily nearing the forty mark, and I no longer trust myself to operate a machine, particularly in the dark. Even as I sink into the passenger seat, I must wrest my mind from the tempting allure of the succubus that is sleep.

  In the illusion-laden limbo between reality and unconsciousness, things without agenda (or even sentience) take on an air of malice, odd-shaped objects adopting malcontent, plotting sabotage, longing to slip their mischievous fingers into the intricate workings of the lives of the innocent. Spindly shadows cast by bushes or the odd tree conspire and intertwine in a way that excites the most intimate fears in a person. And a person with as little sleep as I’ve had over the past couple of days is their favorite target: weak, unguarded, vulnerable, all in spite of a possessive paranoia. It’s under these tricky conditions that my normal affinity for darkness wanes and I find no comfort in it—an abnormality, to be sure. Ordinarily, the darkness is my ally, my solace, my haven, my bitch. We used to play off of each other’s nuances, go on exciting, romantic dates, and court like a Nicholas Sparks novel until dawn whisked it away on wings of light.

  And the next night, we’d do it again.

  Tonight feels like the B-list Hollywood remake of such a novel, cast with a smattering of people the director happens to know. And if I have a say in it, there will most definitely not be a second date.

  “Where to, Captain?” asks Todd.

  “Coffee,” I say. Beyond that is still unclear, but I do know that I have an intense need to caffeinate at the moment, and maybe I’ll be more properly equipped to formulate a plan afterward.

  I bob into and out of lucidness like a buoy in tempestuous waters, and before I know it, Todd is pulling in at the gas station. I blink and he’s getting back into the car, offering to me a sixteen-ounce black dark brew.

  Shitty gas station coffee and I have a tumultuous relationship, riddled with rough nights and broken promises, but at the times I need it most, it’s there for me, and to me, such a quality is invaluable. I drink and am summoned back to reality, first by the grand bitterness of the brew, but then by the liquid substitute for energy working its way into my bloodstream. The world takes on a refreshing clarity. Where previously fidgeting lines and layers of tricky ambiguity dominated my sight, now clean lines and solid structures have taken their place. The new clarity calms me considerably.

  I drink in silence and half of my coffee is gone before I’m ready to do or say anything again. Bless Todd for having the patience to put up with me while I caffeinate.

  While my brainstorm is, in reality, no more than a brainsprinkle, I do find one droplet to be substantial enough to invest some time in: the library.

  One might expect that the library in such a town may be old, worn, and unkempt, and one would be correct about two of those things. The Wometzia Public Library is indeed an old and worn building, but by no standards is it unkempt. In reality, the library is perhaps the most frequented building in town, with almost every household in town paying at least one visit per month, many of them multiple times per week.

  In such an intimately small community, trends take root and spread fast, gaining strength over time, rather than fading into obsolescence. Here, reading is a pastime accepted more widely and readily than watching TV or going to the movies. It helps that the nearest movie theater is over an hour away, and relatively few of Wometzia’s residents have a driver’s license, with fewer still in ownership of a car. In contrast, one rarely finds himself more than an arm’s length away from a book in this town. While I was interviewing for my position, I kept getting distracted by the impressive array of literature lined up on the shelves behind Chief Husk. Not only did it include many authors, but it also spanned quite a few genres, as well—crime, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, thriller, horror, drama, young adult, historical (both fiction and non-fiction). It had maps and atlases, a complete Encyclopedia Britannica (despite the Internet being a thing), and even a few children’s books, from Seuss to Dahl to Blume to Silverstein and beyond.

  The library closes at four o’clock on Saturdays, but my e
ver-useful key opens that door, as well. I suppose the city was trying to save money on keys, but the prudent part of me thinks that maybe having one key for all of the public buildings was a mistake. I’ll count it as a gift from the universe this time, I guess. While my key opens both the library and the school, the two locks are not the same; it is only the law enforcement that has the key that unlocks both.

  I log into one of the computers lined up along the north wall, a handful of Windows desktops donated a number of years ago which are, for any purpose other than browsing the internet or the book-tracking software, utterly useless. I load the search software. In the search bar, I type in ‘Wometzia.’

  The only result is precisely what I’m looking for: A Complete History of Wometzia. When I click the result’s icon, the software pulls up a number of other details about the book, including the publishing date, which was a decade ago.

  Perfect. Really, anything in the past fifty or so years might do, but the more recent, the better. The book has two copies. One of them is in stock, the other checked out and overdue by a week.

  While I hunt down the book, I ask Todd to look up the lives (and deaths) of the couple of generations preceding Firenze Pacheco and Anthony Koster. I would guess that the most (and most useful) information would be found in the obituaries, but also there may be some news clippings related to them.

  Anything may help, really.

  If Firenze’s corpse was laid on the grave of his grandfather, there may be some kind of link between that and his murder, and finding a pattern behind his grandfather’s murder may provide further insight to my present case.

  Andre may have had beef with any number of people, so to keep it simple, I look at family of the victim, the most promising route to my newly caffeinated mind’s eye.

  Sacrifice.

  I locate the volume on one of the reference shelves. It’s a hardcover copy, with art on the front depicting Wometzia in its days of first establishment. The town has worked admirably, throughout the years, to retain its original look, and its inhabitants have achieved that goal on most accounts.

  The table of contents almost drains me of hope, until I spot ‘Geographical History, p. 114.’ I turn to the indicated page and find that several acres, now dry and barren, used to act as farmland. In 1999 the property dried up, and forced the town to invest in improved roadways in order to survive, then by importing goods, no longer able to produce them on their own.

  “Yo!” says Todd from the row of computers. I go to him.

  He has a web browser pulled up with several tabs open. The one currently being displayed is the obituary of one Martin Pacheco.

  “Look at this,” says Todd. He points out a specific sentence: “Martin was well known for being unafraid of trying new things, as demonstrated by many occasions, not the least of which being his fabled attempt at farming, when he and two friends, Jimmy Koster and Oscar Romero, adopted a farm in 1998, unfortunately an endeavor without success.”

  “Pacheco, Koster, Romero. Coincidence?” says Todd.

  “If so, it’s one hell of one,” I say.

  “So what, maybe these guys had beef, some unsettled debt or some shit, baby Romero finds out about it and goes all satanic on the bastard’s poor grandkid?”

  “Maybe,” I say. It almost fits, but something about it still seems incomplete. Something we’re missing, something that will complete a circuit, allowing the bulb to glow and, at last, shed light on this entire case. One small thing, like flicking a light switch.

  Sacrifice.

  Leaning over Todd, I push the mouse over and click to open an adjacent tab: City of Wometzia – Obituaries – Oscar Romero.

  A brief skim shakes a gem loose: Romero, seen by many as a pioneer in the town’s development and maintenance, passed away in an accident on the farm yesterday. He is survived by his son, Andre, and wife, Esme.

  The stars which might normally pock the sky are obscured by a ceiling of storm cloud; the tempest threatening to strike is finally moving in to make good on its promise. The harsh winds kick up sand and small pebbles, pelting the sides of buildings and cars with a steady stream of ponks and tings. If one listens hard enough, it almost sounds like rain. Almost.

  As it looks, however, I won’t have to force that perception for long; as the storm hurries onward, it begins thrusting down mighty crashes of lightning, trees and pillars and forks and webs, all manner of lightning bursting from and among the heavens, marking the space with a vivid, burning afterimage.

  Todd and I just pull onto the main road as the rain hits. It seems to come down in sheets and blankets rather than droplets. Todd has to turn his windshield wipers up to maximum speed in order to see properly, and the water level on the road rises to an inch thick in no time; New Mexico roadways were not built for drainage. Additionally, with no plant life here to stem the flow of the water or soak it up, this area is highly susceptible to flooding, under the right (or wrong) conditions. I can almost hear our neighbors getting out their buckets, preparing to bale water with the vigor of a life raft passenger in the face of imminent sinking.

  Fortunately, for us, Todd and I live just above a steep drop-off, toward which water will gravitate, rendering us safe, assuming our rainfall doesn’t reach record numbers and the foundation remains steady. It does inspire some worry in me, sparking intrusive thoughts about the integrity of the ground upon which our house is rests, but that’s an obsessive worry with which I can preoccupy myself later.

  As swiftly as we can go without hydroplaning, Todd guides us with masterful precision through the watery streets. However, with such severely limited visibility, we almost miss the turn onto the side road leading to the barn and farmhouse. The two of us came up here recently, on an exploration whim.

  When we came here last week, the spontaneous, whimsical, even romantic nature of our visit lent the place a quality of charming antiquity, rustic and picturesque: a barn on an oasis farm gently backlit by the reds and oranges of a summer sunset.

  Now, shrouded in darkness, backlit by nothing but the occasional lightning strike, it’s more like a sixties horror movie cliché. The barn is of a relatively modern build, with a gently sloping roof and shingles hanging on with everything they have. Surely some of those shingles will lose the fight against this torrent.

  Rain is, in my opinion, the most useful tool of catharsis in my repertoire. Its calming prowess over me is rivaled only by Todd and his calm.

  Contrast that to this rain, limiting both vision and hearing. In me, a person with an anxiety-induced need to be hyper-aware of surroundings, this precipitation is anything but soothing. It puts me on edge, but Todd’s unbreakable calm helps me hold it together.

  We park just around a corner, a small bend, obscured by a tiny hill and the rusting remains of a tractor. We kill the engine and head toward the barn on foot, grateful for the auditory cover of the deluge working, at least this time, in our favor. But we must bear in mind that any advantages offered to us by the weather is also offered to any other who chooses to make use of it.

  Ten

  The barn’s massive main doors used to be held tightly locked by a padlock but now they sit only the slightest bit cracked, giving up a tall, thin strip of black nothingness.

  I become excessively aware of the .9mm at my hip and draw it, flick the safety off, and rest my finger along the trigger guard.

  I hear a bag unzip behind me and turn to see Todd withdraw his own weapon, as well as a couple of flashlights.

  “Essentials,” I say.

  Todd laughs and smirks, handing me one of the flashlights. “Well, I wasn’t wrong,” he says.

  Under the gaze of the flashlight, the barn’s guts wear an ominous costume, with lines and shapes and light and shadow all interacting in strange, magical ways, like an MC Escher piece come to life. Surely the staircase to the right connects with another, turning by ninety degrees on multiple axes and disappearing into implied nothingness. The beams are in good condition, but creak under t
he pressures of the whipping wind and the assailing rain wearing on its tired, old joints. It actually holds up well, but looking around more closely, I spot several places where water seeps in and leaks through the roof. It drips with small tat-tat-tat noises, which I’m pleased to find is not drowned out by the cacophony of the storm outside.

  I’m always impressed with how big barns are. I think, no matter how many I enter in my lifetime, they will always seem, to me, to be much bigger on the inside than they appear to be when looking at them from the outside. This barn is not an exception, and as for its role in my mission of finding the Romeros, this size, while certainly impressive, is downright burdensome.

  The stairs do not twist off at impossible angles, but instead lead to a loft that is reminiscent of that in the barn in The Ring. I shudder.

  As I ascend the stairs, Todd covers my back, matching the timing of my footfalls so as to minimize noise.

  “Just like old times,” I say.

  Nine months ago, when I started a full-on war with Detective Jeremy Keroth, he had his goons abduct Beth in order to gain leverage on me. Todd joined me on the rescue mission, which catalyzed the development of our relationship. The rescue mission turned out to be more of a pickup mission, as Beth had stabbed the guard with a fork she had hidden in her bra during the abduction process.

  God, I miss Beth.

  A flash of lightning illuminates the loft for a split second, its glow bursting through the sole second-story window with extravagance.

  Even under the bright beams of our flashlights, there is little to be seen in the loft itself: an overturned bucket, half a bale of hay, some discarded twine.

  However, it provides an excellent vantage point from which to see the entire ground floor.

  And to be seen by it.

  Multiple lightning strikes cast the checked squares of the windows into two fields of light, intersecting in a slim sliver of a triangle where the two glows pool for a combined effect. Thunder follows almost immediately, rattling the eaves. Outside, as the lightning rages, the rain, independent, calms considerably. Its absence renders audible uneasy creaks and drips of the barn.