by Matt Doyle
“Then try again. Make her talk if you have to.”
“Make her?” I repeat, turning it into a question.
“Someone has to, and I don’t know how.”
I raise an eyebrow in suspicion. “And why exactly does ‘someone have to’ if she doesn’t want to?”
Jane fixes me with a serious look and says, “Because right now, all she’s doing is carrying out a long, painful suicide.”
I blink. “Diu.”
Twenty-Eight
I AGREE TO try speaking to Lori, and Jane jumps at the opportunity to give me a ride there. I can’t see any reason to turn it down; it’s quicker and cheaper than calling a cab, and I’m happy to mark it down as making up for her deciding that I was an asshole based on one meeting. Jane drives at a speed that would put Lori to shame, so we arrive at Foster Street in record time. I insist that she leaves me to speak to Lori alone, and she agrees as long as I try to give her an update as soon as possible.
And so, here I stand, in front of Lori’s bungalow with a spare key in my hand, and her best friend’s number in my cell phone.
I’m certain that Jane is right, though I doubt that she knows it. I’m pretty sure that she used the word “suicide” to create emphasis. Either that or it was the best comparison that she could come up with for what Lori is doing to herself. If Jane were there that night, she’d know why Lori is doing what she’s doing. The thing is, Lori isn’t stupid. She also clearly takes good care of both herself and of Ink, so she knows how the Tech Shift system works better than I do. If Jane hadn’t explained it to me on the way over, I wouldn’t have any idea how damaging it could be to stay shifted this long. Lori must know what effect this is having on her body.
I slide the key into the lock, turn it, and push the front door open. I make sure to close it again gently so that I don’t spook Lori, then walk up the hallway and turn right, stepping into the living room. There, curled up on one cushion of the two-seater couch, just like Jane said she would be, I find Ink.
Lori peers out from behind the mask, and her gaze lingers on me for a moment. She looks beyond tired. I take a step towards the couch, and Ink stretches out, letting her body take over the other cushion. This space is mine, the movement says. Keep away.
“Cheeky little kitty right to the end, ain’t ya?” I ask, rolling my eyes and stepping across to the armchair opposite Ink.
Lori watches me sit down, then looks away and closes her eyes. She lets out a quiet huff, readjusts her front legs, and ignores me.
“You do know how worried you’ve got people, right?” I try. “Jane came all the way to my place to give me a key and ask me to try talking to you, because she doesn’t know what else to do.”
No response.
“If you want to get picky, you still owe me five thousand too.”
Still no response.
I groan and throw my head back, letting my gaze come to rest on the ceiling. That’s a shockingly clean white. She must be a neat freak. I bet she rolls her toothpaste up at the bottom too.
“Come on, Lori, help me out here. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not very good at this stuff.”
Again, nothing.
I drop my head back down and stare at Lori. “How long are you going to keep this up, huh?” My voice is low and tipped with more than a little annoyance. I spot Lori screw her eyes shut tighter. Hurrah for open curtains, clear skies, and a good angle on the sun. Fine, then. If that’s what it takes to get a reaction, I can do angry just fine.
“Diu, Lori,” I snap, and the floodgates open. “What happened to you was shitty, but do you have to keep moping like this? Do you really think that this is what your brother wanted?” Lori snaps her eyes open in shock, and I keep pressing. “Your brother was deluded, but he did what he did because he thought that you needed saving. And how are you repaying that? By locking yourself away and watching yourself die?”
Ink rises to her feet on the couch. She bares her teeth, and Lori stares out at me in a rage. I rise to my feet and growl, “You think you scare me, kitty? Huh? You want to know what Bert did that night? He ripped a man’s face to shreds, right in front of me. You’ve got nothing on him. I tell you what, Lori. Your brother did something really stupid, but at least he only did it because he cared about you. He loved you right to the end, and if there really is a heaven up there, he’s looking down on you now and he still loves you, even though you’re acting like a fucking moron.”
I hear something in the back of my head talking, but I’m too far gone to stop it spilling out now. When the words come, they drag the tears with them. “You want to know what’s worse than having a brother who loves you die, Lori? Having a mother that’s still alive, but that hates you now, will hate you tomorrow, and is still going to hate you when you eventually have to put her in the ground. No matter what he did, no matter what mistakes he made at the end, at least you know that you never screwed up enough to make him hate the fact that you’re still alive. At least he never wanted to trade your life for someone else’s.”
Ink sits back on the couch again. The rage is gone from Lori’s gaze now, replaced by a mix of surprise and concern. From somewhere in the mask, Lori asks, “What happened to you?”
I sit down again and say, “Come out of the suit and I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me, and I’ll come out of the suit,” she replies, her voice rattling around inside the metallic muzzle. When I don’t immediately respond, she adds, “I promise. And if I don’t, then…the instruction manual is hidden under a sliding board in the closet in my bedroom. That has the keyword you need for the emergency release on the suit.”
“And now I know that, what’s to stop me just going and getting that right now?”
“You won’t do that,” she says, and I can tell that she’s sure she’s right. “Because you’d rather that I made the decision myself.”
So that’s what it’ll take, huh? Well, that’s just great, Cassie. Well done for starting this one. I let out a long, deep sigh. “Fine. But you’re getting the short version.”
“Okay.”
I groan. “My parents were both born in Vancouver. Mom was a full-blood native, but Dad’s heritage goes back to Pok Liu, Hong Kong if you trace it back a few generations. He was a cop. A good one too. It’s not as bad in Vancouver as it is here, but the police had their fair share of problems with corruption. Dad refused to play into it all. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t matter if it hurt his career, as long as he did what he was meant to: uphold the law. I admired him for that. I mean, I loved my mom, but it was my dad that I most wanted to be like, so I signed up for the police academy the first chance I got.” I shake my head. “That place was run by the wrong people. I made it clear that I was going to be like my dad, that I wouldn’t be bought or bullied, and they found a way to kick me out. The funny thing was, I expected my parents to be disappointed with me, but they weren’t. At all. Instead, we all sat down together and discussed what I could do.
“It was Dad who suggested that, if I really wanted to go into law enforcement, then maybe setting up as a PI was a good idea. He helped me get the licences, taught me how he worked, and started pushing cases my way. They were always the same sort of thing; small cases where the police wouldn’t touch it for whatever reason, but that wouldn’t ruffle too many feathers if I ended up solving them. He knew the limits, my dad. The problem was, I didn’t.
“This lady came to my door one day, talking about how her daughter had been killed. The police had ruled it an accidental death, but she believed that it was murder, and that the person responsible may have been one of the senior members of the local government. When I spoke to my dad about it, he said that he wouldn’t have sent her my way if she’d come across him first. He knew of the case, but he said that the person the investigation had been allocated to meant it was something that went deep. ‘Cases like that,’ he said, ‘shouldn’t be the way they are. But they are, and there’s nothing that you or I can do about that’. H
e looked really sad about that. Like he thought I’d think of less of him because there was something that he couldn’t do.
“The idea that he was in the wrong never crossed my mind. I just treated it like any other case. Dad couldn’t work it because his job had boundaries, but mine didn’t. So I took it on, against his advice, and started digging. He found out, of course, and he tried to warn me off when word started to spread around the police station, but I wouldn’t back down. This was my case, and I would not let myself be kept down like he was. He was worried. Really worried. So much so that Mom tried to get me drop it too, but I just kept going. It was seeing my dad feeling so low about not being able to touch it that drove me, I think. As far as I was concerned, he was my hero, and I hated knowing that he felt like he was letting anyone down.”
I sigh. “The thing with digging is that if you do it long enough, the chances are you’ll find something. And I did find something. Evidence. Evidence that the guy who my client suspected not only committed murder, but was also knee-deep in a lot of dodgy stuff that should have prevented him from holding office. So I gathered it all up, marched into the police station, and slammed it all down on the table, declaring that the police had to do something or I’d go to the press. The police acted, exactly as I’d hoped, and arrested the guy, but they released him on bail. I expected him to try to run, but he didn’t. He decided that there was no escape for him, and so he may as well take me down with him.
“He was a licenced gun holder, but no one figured that it would be a good idea to remove his weapons after he was released on bail. Stupid, right? It was almost like the PD did it on purpose to make sure I wouldn’t do something like that again. They were already on their way to our place when all hell broke loose, so I don’t think that they expected things to go the way they did, but hey, they were bent cops, not fortune-tellers, right? Anyway, the guy broke in a little while after we’d all gone to bed. He found me, pulled his gun, and squeezed the trigger, one, two, three, four, five times,” I say, miming the gunshots with my finger. “The next thing I knew, Dad was slumped in front of me. The guy raised the gun again, and Dad sprang up. He took another shot, but he still managed to disarm the guy. So then the police show up, and everything starts to blur together until we make it to the hospital.”
I wipe my eyes and ask, “Do you know what the last thing my dad said to me was? He told me that he was proud of me. He said that he loved me, and that he was proud that I refused to back down, even when he couldn’t do the same. Mom was never the same after he died, though. She wouldn’t talk to me for the longest time, but I kept chipping away at her, trying to cheer her up or get her back on her feet. It turned out that I was the one keeping her down. When she did start talking to me again, she told me that constantly trying to get her to open up just reminded her why her husband was dead. Apparently, I just didn’t know when to quit, and look where that got the two of us. Me fatherless, and her widowed. It didn’t matter that Dad was proud of me when he went, because in that moment, she hated me. She hated me then, and she hates me now, because as far as she’s concerned, I broke our perfect home.
“A couple of months of her constantly reminding me of how she felt about me was all that it took to get me to leave. I’ve not been back since. I don’t call, I don’t write, and she’s no different. So, yeah. Eddie loved you, and it all came to an end. My mom hates me, and it just keeps going. I tell you what, though. If I had that time again, I’d still take the case, and I’d still dig until I hit gold, because knowing that my dad thought that I did the right thing when he couldn’t was enough for me.” I pause long enough to look up at Lori and drag a few stray hairs back behind my ears. “And that’s all you’re getting out of me.”
Ink studies me, and it really does look more like Ink now. Her posture is more relaxed, and the way she’s sitting is more naturally feline than the weird, disjointed stance that she’s had since I got here.
She drops her head, and Lori’s voice says, “I doubt the milk’s still good, but if you don’t mind it black, you’re welcome to make yourself a tea or a coffee.” Ink hops off the couch and skulks out of the room, and moments later there is the quiet thud of a door being pushed shut and the slightly muffled click-click of Lori unlocking Ink’s front legs.
I slip my phone out of my pocket and fire off a quick text to Jane: She’s changing out of the suit now. I’d give her more detail, but she was the one who sent me up here, so I’m placing the blame for me having to dig up crappy memories squarely on her shoulders for now. Besides, as messages go, it tells her what she needs to know.
The kitchen doesn’t look too bad compared to what I was expecting. In fact, everything is pretty neat. But then, given both the abnormally clean sheen to the living room ceiling and that Jane has been visiting daily, I guess it makes sense. I fill the kettle and notice two bowls on the floor. The first is a silver dish half full of water. There’s a small puddle around one side where some of it must have spilled. Next to this, a large black bowl with the name Ink embossed over the front and surrounded by a cutesy paw print pattern is full of half-eaten fries and an empty burger bun. That makes me smile because, way back in school, I had a friend who had a cat that she insisted would only eat fries.
Thinking on it, I wonder how it works for Lori to eat and drink when she’s Ink? I know the muzzle isn’t as long as Jane’s husband Murphy’s is when he’s being an Alsatian, but it must be awkward. I suppose I could ask. She did say she liked that.
The boiler sitting at the back of the kitchen springs into life, filling the room with a low hum. Lori must be having a shower. I close my eyes and let the sound fill my head, and the darkness slowly fades into the image of water flowing from a shower head, soaking Lori’s lightly toned body as she tries to wash away the memories of the last week and a half. I can see her tears mingling with the clean water, and I reach out to comfort her, to help her forget…
Squeak.
The image shatters, and the hum fades back in, followed quickly by the click of the kettle. I slowly open my eyes and look down. My foot is pressed firmly on top of a squeaky mouse toy the size of my hand. Its tail is attached to a thick string that trails back towards the side of the ground-level cupboards at the opposite side of the room, where it connects to a big red stick that appears to have fallen down out of its shadowy corner.
“I guess Jane was trying to coax her out with play,” I say to myself. Huh. Now I wonder why my mind went there rather than asking something obvious like, “What’s this doing here?” or “Since when could you get cat toys this big?”
I shake my head and head over to the fridge. Lori was right, the milk is chunky. I pour myself a mug of black coffee and prop the vile-smelling carton up in the sink, ready to be washed down once I know that Lori’s out of the shower. A quick check of my phone shows that Jane wants me to ask Lori to call her when she feels up to it. Fair enough. I think I can pass that on without holding a grudge.
It takes another five minutes for the boiler to switch off, most of which time I spend staring at Mr. Squeak-On-A-Stick and wondering what other oversized toys she has. It isn’t until I pour the milk down the sink and try to break up the lumps that I realise what I’m about to do.
When I’d gotten angry with Jane earlier, it was because I really did worry about Lori, and when she wouldn’t answer my calls or open the door, it felt like I’d been rejected. The anger wasn’t entirely aimed at Jane, or at Lori. It was more a case that, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I’d actually tried to make a connection with someone and felt that I’d somehow managed to screw it up. That anger was all for me. The anger with Lori when she was still dressed as Ink, though, that’s all hers for being so stubborn that she made me dig into things I prefer to bury rather than deal with.
I hate to admit it, but I’m actually pretty nervous now. I started noticing photos appearing in Charlie’s house about a year ago. They’re mostly of her, smiling happily with someone else. I’ve been leavin
g it so long between visits that there always seems to be new ones each time that I drop by. I spotted the latest snap when I went to speak to her about Flash7 sales at the start of the case. It was taken at the local park, and was of just the girlfriend, sitting on a picnic blanket. She was laughing. I never begrudged Charlie moving on, and I still don’t. I’m not jealous of whoever her new partner is for being with her. I’m jealous of Charlie because she’s been able to step into something else, while I’ve been letting myself wallow. It would be unreasonable for me to expect her to refuse to date all the time that I’m single, but I hated that she didn’t anyway. But then, she never mentioned the new partner when I did visit either. She always asks if I’ve met anyone, and I always dodge the question, so she probably avoids the subject in order that she won’t hurt me. She’s like that.
It’s not as if no one’s shown an interest in me over the last two years, but I’ve always sent them on their way with either a scowl or an insult. In some cases, both. There are always excuses that I can feed myself to justify my rejection of them; this person’s got a reputation, that person’s too forward, this one’s just got one of those voices. The truth is that I don’t want to get hurt. All those little walls, all built up to stop myself from ending up in the position where something important can just fall apart again…Yet here I am, peering over those self-same walls, knowing I’m about to try to do just that. I hated the feeling of being rejected by Lori, so now I know she didn’t turn me down, I’m going to give her the chance to actually do it? I am such a masochist.
“Someone looks serious,” Lori says.
I don’t look up. “Dead milk. It makes me think about life, the universe, and everything.”
“So is this what you normally wear?” she asks.
I’m currently in a pair of light blue sweatpants, faded white trainers, and a lightweight fitted T-shirt in a luminous pink tone that clashes horribly with both. Hardly glamorous, and a far cry from Lori’s usual “rock” edge. It’s honest, though, I guess.
