Wayward

by Gregory Ashe

  “What’s wrong?” Somers said when Dulac finally got back.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just here, getting my job done.”

  “Great.” Somers pulled up a report he’d been typing the day before: the case of the missing Lego Death Star. A college freshman—eighteen years old, for Christ’s sake—claimed the Death Star model had been stolen; he accused his suitemates, three pimply teens, all of them with hair so greasy they were fire hazards. A month before, Somers would have focused on the pettiness of the case; a month ago, his ego would have been on the line. After a series of escalating conflicts with Hazard, though, Somers had decided his ego wasn’t the most important thing in his life, and he was trying, as best he could, to knock off some of the rough edges.

  “And I got here on time,” Dulac said.

  Sighing, Somers leaned on his elbow so he could peer around the computer monitors. “Here we go.”

  “No, I’m just saying. I got here on time. And I’m following up on that dog-smuggling ring.”

  “What dog-smuggling ring?”

  “You’d know if you’d been here on time.”

  “It’s going to be one of those days, huh? Ok. Let me know when you’re ready to talk.”

  “I was ready to talk at seven-thirty when I got here.”

  As Somers went back to work, he stretched out one arm and gave Dulac a big thumbs up.

  Double birds appeared over the top of Dulac’s computer monitor.

  Another ten minutes must have passed; Somers was just finishing the Death Star report when Dulac’s chair started squeaking again. The younger detective scooted around the desks, his chair protesting with every movement. When he got to Somers’s side, he slumped on the desk.

  “How bad is it?” Somers asked, still clicking through the document on his screen, checking for typos.

  “Bad.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Darnell kicked me out.”

  Somers let the words land, let another moment pass, and then said, “I didn’t know you guys were living together.”

  “Not living together living together.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Oh my God,” Dulac groaned. “You’re so old.”

  “Yeah, well, this geezer is the only one who listens to your nonsense. Sit up straight. I’ll get you some coffee. Then you tell me what happened. Then we figure it out.” Somers grinned and tousled Dulac’s hair before pushing back from the desk. “You’re lucky I can take a break from my pressing caseload.”

  By the time Somers had come back with the coffee—Dulac liked even more sugar than Somers took—Dulac had his chin in his hand.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  “So, you left Noah and Rebeca’s pretty early last night. You didn’t say goodbye.”

  Staring at the coffee, Dulac used the stirrer to poke at clumps of undissolved powdered creamer.

  “And you drank almost a whole bottle of wine in about fifteen minutes.”

  Dulac was groaning. The poking got more vigorous.

  “So I’m guessing you went home and got in a fight with Darnell.”

  “Well, don’t say it like I’m an asshole.”

  “What did you fight about?”

  “I don’t know. Stuff.”

  “Darnell’s work?”

  Dulac rolled his eyes.

  “God,” Somers said, “you’ve got it bad, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “You’re coming down with a serious case of being fourteen years old.”

  “Hardy har. Christ, I don’t know why I talk to you.”

  “Was it about something that happened at the party?”

  “Look, I don’t want to get into it, ok?”

  “Ok.”

  Dulac stabbed at the coffee with the stirrer. After twenty or thirty seconds, he said, “I just want you to tell me how to fix it.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s kind of the same thing every time. You let both people cool down, you apologize, you take responsibility for your part, and you talk through it.”

  “Oh my God,” Dulac said, stabbing more ferociously at the cup. “That sounds awful.”

  “Ok, well, your options are: a) spend the rest of your life as an aging fuckboy who’s unable to have a real relationship—”

  “Aging? What the hell, dude? You’re the one with all the goddamn age spots. You look like a fucking map of the fucking Sahara.”

  Somers raised an eyebrow. “—or, b) you learn how to apologize and handle relationship stuff like a grownup. Now would be a good time to practice. Age spots?”

  Dulac’s hand slowed; the coffee stirrer floated among the clumps of creamer. He mumbled something.

  “Oh yeah, I’m super old, so I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

  This time, Dulac’s eyes came up. He jabbed with the stirrer again. “I’m. Sorry. You don’t have age spots. You just don’t get it, though, dude. He’s so mad at me. And I honestly don’t think I can fix it. Not just by talking about it. I’ve got to do some big, grand gesture that will make everything better. Darnell thinks I’m just this dumb kid hung up on—shit!”

  Coffee was spilling out a hole that Dulac had put through the side of the Styrofoam cup.

  “You poked a hole through the cup,” Somers said, just in case Dulac hadn’t noticed. Coffee was spreading across the desk, and Dulac grabbed up the cup. That just made things worse; coffee leaked everywhere.

  “No shit, no shit, oh man, no shit.”

  Somers moved over to the coffee station, grabbed a wad of napkins, and turned back to the bullpen. The door to Chief Cravens’s office opened, and Cravens poked her head out.

  “Detective Somerset,” she called. “I need to talk to you. Detective Dulac, what in God’s name are you doing?”

  “Proving that he’s not a dumb kid,” Somers said with a sigh, while Dulac hunched over a trash can, coffee leaking between his fingers. “I’ll be there in a second.”

  Once Somers had Dulac more or less squared away—“Why didn’t you just drop it in a trash can?” “I don’t know, dude, I’m not as smart as you. Sorry.”—he rapped on Cravens’s door and stepped inside.

  “Have a seat, Detective.”

  Cravens was an older woman, on the far side of middle age. In the years that Somers had worked with her, he had always been impressed by how solid the woman had seemed: Wahredua’s first female detective and first female chief, she was tough and smart and good at her job. Good at politics too, Somers thought, which had been her undoing. With her stylish gray hair in a bun, out of uniform, she might have been mistaken for someone’s grandmother.

  Today, though—and more and more often, Somers realized with another of those liminal flashes that Hazard made such a big deal about—Cravens looked worn out. In the last two years, Wahredua had borne witness to terrible murders and other violent crimes, and the pressure of handling those had fallen on Cravens. She was going to retire, Somers realized. He’d always known it would happen eventually, but now the thought forced its way to the front of his mind. She couldn’t keep doing this.

  All Cravens said, though, was, “I’ve got something I’d like you to handle. It’s a custody exchange.” She tapped a file on the desk. “Everything’s in order.”

  “Custody?” Somers frowned. “Like, a parental kidnapping?”

  “No, not at all. It’s a simple situation, but a sad one. This child—her name is Dolores Dobbs—was born to unwed parents. Her father, Joshua Dobbs, acknowledged her as his daughter and filled out the birth certificate. Until now, Dolores has been living exclusively with her mother.” Cravens’s mouth thinned. “Well, that’s not quite right. With her grandparents. The mother has been in and out of the picture. Regardless, the mother seems to have disappeared for good, and the father, Mr. Dobbs, decided he wanted full custody. The grandparents didn’t want to surrender the child, which I can understand.”

  “It sounds li
ke they basically raised her,” Somers said. “Of course they don’t want to give her up.”

  “Well, it went to court, and now it’s finally been settled. Full custody to the father. I know it’s not going to be a pleasant job, but I’d like you to handle it.”

  Several questions came to mind, and Somers hesitated, wishing he could think three steps ahead like Hazard. Why Somers? Why not a uniformed officer, who usually handled this kind of thing? Why did Somers feel like Cravens was walking a high wire?

  “That’s all, Detective.”

  “What’s going on, Chief? This doesn’t feel right.”

  Cravens tried to meet his eyes, but her gaze slid away to the wall. “You’ll probably have to explain a few things to the grandparents. This has been a contentious court battle, and I think you’ll need to help them understand that things will only get worse from here if they don’t cooperate. Interference with custody is a misdemeanor, as long as they don’t take the child out of state, but if they continue to refuse, they’ll be facing child kidnapping charges. And a civil suit. The Dobbs family has been litigious.”

  Somers scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Ok, the Dobbs family. Josh Dobbs. He’s that rich kid. The family’s got some kind of archery target manufacturing company. They’ve got money, sure, but what am I missing here?”

  Cravens sighed; her gaze slid farther down the wall.

  Then it landed. “The election?” Somers said. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Detective Somerset,” Cravens said, and now she did look at him, and the exhaustion Somers saw there went down to the bone. “I think you should be prepared for members of the press to be at the Vega household. This will likely be a very public event; it’ll be in your best interest to convince everyone to let it play out smoothly. I’m sure you want to come out of this looking good.”

  “Looking good?”

  Holding out the file, Cravens said, “That will be all. You’ll need to be at the Vega household at eleven.”

  Somers wanted to stay and fight, but he wasn’t even sure what the fight was about. After a moment of trying to chart the political currents of the case, he shook his head and snatched the folder from Cravens’s hand.

  “I don’t entirely know why this feels so messed up,” Somers said. “But I know enough: you’re playing politics with a little girl’s life. That’s not what this job is about, Chief.”

  Cravens’s head came up; a slight tremor ran through her chin. “You are dismissed, Detective.”

  Somers channeled a little bit of Emery Hazard on his way out: he slammed the door.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MARCH 25

  MONDAY

  8:22 PM

  SOMERS GOT HOME LATE and exhausted. As the Mustang rolled to a stop in the garage, he hit the remote, and the door rattled down behind him. Then he sat a minute, eyes closed, head against the seat. His thoughts skipped backward over the day. Most recently, the dingy double-wide belonging to the Vega family, the arguments, the explanations, the child sobbing as Somers and Dulac escorted a woman from Social Services, who carried her away from the people who had loved and raised her. Then, earlier, his conversation with Cravens, the political undertow of her words, everything under the shadow of the election. Before that, Dulac. And to start this awful day, the half-packed duffel for his fiancé, whose father was dying in a shitty regional hospital several hours away.

  He pulled down the visor, checked himself: circles under his eyes, everything else washed out by the mirror’s LEDs. Smile for the camera, he thought, and then he flipped up the visor, slapped his cheeks, a few good ones until the skin stung and his eyes were wet, and got out of the car.

  He was smiling when he went into the house.

  The air smelled like onions, with a mild, herbal underlayer—definitely rosemary, definitely sage, and for a moment Somers could visualize Hazard’s big hands stripping the leaves, bruising them, his fingers stained with their fragrance. But the cop part of Somers’s brain latched on to more details: the cast-iron skillet pushed to the back of the stove, the burners off. On the counter, the chef’s knife was laid neatly across the center of the cutting board, a pile of minced rosemary at the tip of the blade. The only light came from the hood over the range; the house was silent.

  “Ree?” Shutting the door behind him, Somers flipped the lock. It wasn’t like Hazard to leave anything unfinished—see exhibit A, a typical Emery Hazard weekend, which was spent stripping wallpaper with his teeth or making a canoe by hand, or, ok, more realistically, reseeding the lawn or ripping out the blackberries along the southern fence. But something might have come up, something with a case Hazard was working. “Ree? Are you home?”

  Of course he was home; the minivan was in the garage. But the house was silent. Somers thought of the way his skin had sounded when he’d slapped himself in the car, the pop-pop of it, and he prickled all over like he’d fallen into nettles.

  “In the front room,” Hazard called; his voice was planed flat, stripped of emotion. Was he angry? Something Somers had done? Dirty socks under the bed? Or something Somers hadn’t done? The new sump pump that was still in its box? Somers had thought they were past that. Was it something with Hazard’s father? The thought made Somers walk faster through dark rooms and dark halls until he got to the sitting room—the room at the front of the house, right off the foyer, that they never used. Light spilled across the floor. “Hey, are you ok? Did something—” Somers pulled up short in the opening. “Hello, Father.”

  Glennworth Somerset had been shot over a year ago, and the trauma and recovery had drastically altered his appearance. When Somers had been growing up, his father had been of average height and average size, with dark hair and a tendency to let his fashion be dictated by the golf channels. The only truly distinctive feature that marked the men as father and son were their eyes: the same Caribbean blue. After being shot the year before, though, Glenn had wasted away, his skin drawn too tight, his features exaggerated on his emaciated face. He had regained some of the weight, and since beginning his campaign for election, he had gone to great lengths to improve his appearance: his iron-gray hair neatly cut and brushed, his skin glowing from regular trips to a tanning bed, and his clothes carefully tailored to present him at his best. It was one more variation on the fine art of illusion that Somers had learned from both his parents. And he thought, again, of the twin pop-pop when he’d slapped himself in the car.

  “John-Henry,” Glenn said, standing and moving toward him. He embraced Somers, the hug lasting a little too long, the smell of English Leather like a mouthful of fog. “How are you today?”

  “I’m fine.” When the hug broke, Somers had to fight the urge to step back. “How are you?” His gaze shot to Hazard, the tightness in his jaw. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m going to finish dinner,” Hazard said, pushing up from the sofa.

  “Actually, Emery,” Glenn said, holding out a hand, “you’ll want to hear this.”

  “John can fill me in.” Hazard squeezed Somers’s arm once as he moved around them. “Good to see you again, Glenn.”

  “We’re having a conversation, Emery. It’s not polite to run away.”

  Somers stifled a groan. “It’s ok, Father. He and I can talk about it later, whatever it is. Let him go—”

  “It’s not ok,” Glenn said. “You’re going to marry him, aren’t you? That was the point of that spectacle on your birthday, wasn’t it? Which, by the way, you still haven’t apologized to your mother for. She sobbed, John-Henry, sobbed her heart out. For days. Because nobody could be troubled to tell her that one of the most important days of her son’s life was about to happen. And I really think, even though he didn’t have the good grace to ask my blessing, it’s not too much to expect your fiancé to be civil to your parents.”

  “Ok,” Somers said, taking Hazard’s hand before he could speak. “Everybody take a breath. I just got home; why does it feel like I’m walkin
g into World War III? What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Hazard said. “Do you want me to stay?”

  “It’s important for both of you to hear this,” Glenn said. “We need to talk it through together.”

  “If my dad thinks you should hear it,” Somers began.

  “Fine,” Hazard said, moving back to the sofa, sitting on the edge of a cushion. “Let’s get it over with.”

  But, of course, now that round one was over, round two was getting started. Glenn wanted to have something to drink. A beer? No, not a beer. Don’t you keep the essentials? A scotch on the rocks? On the rocks? And it went on and on like that. Somers was old enough—had played this game long enough—to know that it didn’t matter what he said or did, what liquors and bitters and tonic water he kept stocked. Round two wasn’t about a drink. Round two was punishment for making round one take so long.

  When Glenn finally had an acceptable drink—a Manhattan, tonight—he sat in a wingback chair and sipped at it and made a moue. “A little heavy-handed tonight with the bitters, weren’t we?”

  Hazard actually growled.

  “Father,” Somers said, “I had a bad day. A really bad one. I just want to have dinner and call it a night.”

  Taking another sip, Glenn watched them both over the rim of the glass. Then he said, “I’d like to hire Emery. And, since the two of you are seemingly inseparable, I assume you’ll be helping him.”

  “Emery handles his investigations independently,” Somers said. “So you assume wrong.”