Michael, Antoinette, and Me

 

 

Part Nineteen

 

Rich Serling was a hard forty-eight, his pallid face painted with tired, his chestnut hair scruffy, obviously not touched by a barber in months, his gray off-the-rack suit hung a size too big, thin black tie pulled loose against a wrinkled white shirt.

He needed a shave.

The office was crowded with dim, cut by sharp blades of sunlight around tattered curtains on the window and me in the doorway. The odor of unwashed humanity, stale liquor, moldy paper, and cigarette smoke couldn’t dent my poker face me having stood in a bathroom covered in shit.

Even before I finished my announcement concerning life and death, Serling was scrambling to his feet behind the cluttered oak desk old by the end of the Civil War, the desk in the back of the small room facing the door. He worked his palms fruitlessly over his hair.

“Good afternoon,” he choked out. “Yes. Me. That’s to say, I’m Serling. Richard Sterling. You are?”

“In need of a private detective.”

“Eh. OK. I’m a detective. Would you like to sit –”

I glanced the five rickety chairs lining the wall to my right. “I’m good.”

He fell to his chair, groped in a drawer coming up with a tan tablet. After three pens, he found one that worked, looking up at me.

“Are you busy now?”

“Um, I just so happen to be between cases. Lucky you, uh?”

“Lucky me.”

“Er, generally, what’s this life and death? Your old man stepping out on you?”

Holding his eyes through my sunglasses, I said, “I have come to know there are people in this world who mean me harm. I want information gathered.”

“Information gathered?”

“Know thy enemy.”

“I see.”

“Are you discreet, Mr. Sterling?”

“I am. Also, just so you know. I don’t break any laws.”

I removed my sunglasses. “I know for a fact that is not true.”

“I can explain –”

Replacing my sunglasses, I waved him off, opening my tan folder. “We’ll start here. I want simple background on these two.”

He eyed the sheet of paper. “Husband and wife?”

“That’s up in the air. He left her for our next candidate. I want to see financials on both.”

“Simple enough. Divorce is always messy. Men love to hide assets. Who’s he banging, sister?”

I smirked at sister. “A child. Tammy Flannagan.” I handed down a second sheet of paper. “I want to know everything, right down to her shoe size.”

“Whoa. Hugo?”

“Hugo has a couple of goons. Big man, George. Little man, didn’t catch his name. In their thirties. They assaulted me once.”

“I assume you want their shoe sizes, too.”

I nodded. “I want a full background on Mr. Flannagan, too. I want to know where his Jesus Camp is.”

“I suppose you want to know if the buildings are wood or brick.”

Our eyes met. I was then sure Mr. Serling understood me. “Aye.”

Serling sat back. “Easy enough. I charge –”

“Oh, my dear Mr. Serling. That’s the easy stuff.” I dropped the next piece of paper, a newspaper photo attached with a paperclip, on the desk. “Jody Demarko. She’s going to make a big splash soon. She was kidnapped, held, tortured, and murdered by Mike Borrows and Bill Locke, then buried in The Pines.”

Serling scoffed.

“Mr. Serling, I know this to be true: Jody Demarko was kidnapped, held, tortured, and murdered by Mike Borrows and Bill Locke, then buried in The Pines. Borrows did the torturing and killing. Locke watched.”

“If that’s true –”

“It is.”

“Why not go to the police?”

“I did tell the police. I suspect my statement will drop into a paper shredder in some dark room.”

He stared behind me for a long moment, then waved his hand in front of his face. “Locke I’ve heard of.”

“Borrows is his lawyer.”

“A good one, I’d guess, getting the racketeering charges dropped. Not that I’ve been following the case. All hush-hush. I read the paper. We’re stepping into a minefield. A dangerous minefield.”

“Does that scare you?”

“Of course. But I’ve run across real minefields under gunfire.”

“I know.”

He watched my sunglasses into a long silence.

“Here’s what I want. Borrows held Jody somewhere. They, that is to say Borrows and Locke, own properties outside the criminal organization. I’m guessing it’s a way to launder money or even steal the ill-gotten gain. Anyway, they use a blind LLC: Hemingway Associates.

“Track down where Jody was held. Gather the evidence.”

“All without getting killed stepping on a mine.”

“If you happen to stumble upon any captive children, feel free to rescue them. Any rewards and accolades offered are yours.”

Pursing his lips, he nodded at his notes. “That’s a fantastic tale.”

“There’s more.”

He rolled his eyes.

I dropped another piece of paper, the newspaper clipping of my eighth-grade photo with stories neatly attached.

“I know this story. Wait.” He shuffled papers. “Their daughter? She’s somehow connected to –”

“I know for a fact that’s not her in the grave.”

He stared through my sunglasses. “I understand.”

“I’ve noted her former address, a property co-owned by Hemingway Associates.”

“The plot thickens.”

“The telephone installer, the hardware store, the paint store, in those notes. With some legwork, you can prove she was just a wide-eyed innocent child caught in the switches. You can establish she had no reason to be three towns over getting burned up in an abandoned house.”

“Who’s in the grave?”

“Jennifer Longe. She ran away because she was bad at algebra. A drifter, Paul Atkinson, held her in the house, then killed her. Any day now, the story will drop that the second body in the fire was Atkinson’s. There was a suicide note. You won’t hear that from anyone but me.”

He paused, pen on paper. “You’re thinking Atkinson’s not dead.”

“I know Atkinson’s not dead. Final task. Full profile. He lives completely paperless running from felony assault charges. I’m sure there’s more. I know you won’t be able to find him. I’m sure he’ll be finding me.

“Final, final task: See if she left any footprints.”

He leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, nodding at his desk. “My fee is –”

From my light red suede bag, I placed two bundles on his desk. “I’ve seen your financials. $10,000. Now, be a good boy, catch up on your rent, buy a suit that fits, and get cleaned up. Confine your drinking to after hours. You have serious work to do.”

He scrambled to his feet just as he had when I first entered. “Aye. Wait. I don’t see your information anywhere.”

“Antoinette. I’ll contact you. If anything urgent comes up, drop an ad in the personals.”

“Saying?”

“Call me: Dick.”

 

John Bailey was a man in his fifties, not much taller than me, always dressed impeccably – I liked he had a white pocket handkerchief like a pocket square, a touch of elegance – hair color matching my russet, his eyes a dark inquisitive brown.

“Mr. Bailey?” I asked, setting my tray on the table, presuming. “May I?”

Sliding quickly from the booth, he clambered to his feet, his napkin floating to the floor. He offered a slight head bow and inviting hand motion. “Please do.”

I thought he should have clicked his heels.

“I didn’t wish to interrupt your dinner.” I scooted on the bench seat placing my hat beside me, my sunglasses next to my tray. “Meat loaf.” I head bobbed. “Always a good choice.”

“Eh, yes.” He sat, watching me. “French fries?”

“Swimming in gravy.”

“That’s your dinner?”

“Just a snack, Mr. Bailey.”

He froze like a rabbit surprised on a predawn lawn. “Where’d you get the pendant?”

“Pam, like it says. My girlfriend.”

He blinked repeatedly, his eyes devouring my face. “Eh, that can’t be.”

“I’m her new girlfriend,” I said, cutting off his you’re dead.

“Oh, that makes sense. Yes. She was much younger than you. Terrible, terrible. I really liked –”

“I’m not a gossip,” Mr. Bailey.

“Of course not.”

Glancing to my left across Harvest onto the mall, I said, “Tammy Flannagan.”

“Yes?”

I held his eyes. “Given that Miss Flannagan is such an irritating person, why?”

“Why? Why do I employ her? I don’t see how that’s any of your business, you not being a gossip and all.”

“Pamala Edwards. I’m sure you heard the tale of how Miss Flannagan had two gentlemen assault Pamala’s previous girlfriend.”

“That’s one version. I’m sure you know Pamala assaulted Tammy.”

“I know a version of that story.”

Bailey scrunched his face, assaulting his meat loaf and mashed potatoes for a solid minute and a half. “Tammy can be irritating, but she keeps that out of the store. She’s good with the customers. She can sell snow to an Eskimo.”

“Oh, my dear Mr. Bailey. You look passed her hate mongering because Tammy can sell overpriced watches? I thought you a better man than that. I heard about the proposed ad campaign.”

He indignantly placed his fork to the table as much as such a motion can be described as indignant.

“My dear, eh –”

“Antoinette.”

“My dear Antoinette. It’s a complex relationship.”

I put my elbows on the table, my chin resting on my folded hands, keeping his eyes.

“Hugo is like a brother to me.”

I watched his eyes.

“OK. OK. I was a fat child. The other children rode me terribly. One day, five kids decided to beat me up. Hugo stepped in, beating them up instead.” Distaste draped his face. “My father practically adopted him. Even paid for his college.”

“If only you were more like Hugo, huh?”

Again, rabbit on the lawn. “You have no idea.”

“I’m pretty smart. For a girl.”

 

I did not go to the mall to confront John Bailey. I’d not given any thought to Tammy until I saw Bailey in Harvest. We walked the mall, my hand loose on Bailey’s elbow, as I Sally-laughed at his stupid jokes watching myself in the store windows, the reason I wanted to go to the mall after meeting with Mr. Serling.

Maybe for the first time, I watched me and not Antoinette in the reflections. Gliding flawlessly on my three-inch black sandals, the flowered black silk dress adding Asian mystery to my elegant hat and sunglasses.

Bailey greeted many, mostly by name. Few stopped, passing pleasantries in any meaningful way. I was introduced to fewer, declining offered hands with aloof dismissiveness. My father hurried up on us as if he had important business. He suggested an excited puppy.

“That ad’s going to run on time,” he said.

Bailey positioned himself between us. I was not introduced.

“Good, good. Glad to hear it.”

Mister I-can't-take-a-hint persisted. “I told you I wasn’t sure it’d get in on time.” My father's attempt to see around Bailey was embarrassingly obvious.

“Fine. We’ll talk next week.”

 

We paused in front of the jewelry store, facing each other too close to be called appropriate. “You need to watch men like that.”

“John, really. Do you think I need that kind of advice?”

“I don’t, actually. Should I be working on a pendant for Pamala?”

“Why?”

“Well, Antoinette –”

“We’re good. I was born in October. They called me October Baby well into third grade. That got shortened to October, finally to Toby.”

“Amazing coincidence.”

“That’s how the universe works sometimes.”

 

John Bailey. It’s not like I wanted him to cum on my face. Somehow, once I unlocked the Hugo story, Bailey gushed childhood tales on me, challenging my ability to Sally him. Calling him by his first name just seemed right.

I walked the mall again still avoiding the wing hosting Playland, my reflection a coy companion. When I found the perfect window, the proper balance of light and dark, I’d window shop, teasing and flirting, often a blush rising.

At Splitzer’s, a high-end women’s apparel shop, my reflection was so detailed, I felt I could kiss her, the deep rose lipstick so inviting. Twenty feet into the interior, the salesclerk drew my attention, Caribbean Ocean blue silk shirt, abundant straw hair framing her round face, busy dark eyebrows implying white yellow may not be her natural hair color. She blushed, looked away, then back again.

I shrugged, rolling my eyes.

She nodded, biting her lip.

I thought I should enter the store, explain I was flirting with me, my reflection, not her.

Again, my attention drawn focusing on the reflection, my father looming six paces behind me. If he were any more cliché, he’d been licking his lips, maybe drooling. His reflection grew in the window.

“That’s a beautiful dress. It’s like it was made for you.”

“Thank you.” I did not turn. “It was. Now go away.”

“I’m just being friendly. I’m with the newspaper –”

I spun on my heel, stepping back, removing my sunglasses, glaring. “Did you just smell me?”

“Well, I, eh. That’s a nice perfume.”

“Perfume?” Maybe lingering Ivory soap or Prell shampoo. More likely my natural scent. “That’s just creepy.”

“Not at all. I –”

“Oh, here it comes.” I rolled my eyes. “A creeper’s going to explain to me why his creep isn’t creepy.”

“You’ve completely misunderstood –”

“It is you who’s completely misunderstood. Let me make this clear to you: Go fuck yourself.”

His face twisted like I’d smeared shit under his nose as he growled barely audible. “You don’t have to be a snotty little cunt.”

I was not surprised he looked me in the face – again – and did not recognize his daughter. As a child living in his house, my survival strategy was to be invisible. Snotty little cunt stuck in my ear, my mother’s endearment for me. Like with Sailor Max, I thought me a subject in pillow talk between my mother and father weird.

There in the mall, I wanted to be hurt by him. I wanted to feel something like in the hospital with my mother. I wanted to fall victim, devastated, dropping to the pale ceramic floor crying. I wanted validation of the father/daughter relationship.

Nothing. My humanity was gone.

I replaced my sunglasses, watching the back of his head as he pounded away on heavy, angry feet.

“If the universe places the proper circumstances in my path, I shall buy you lunch.”

 

I lingered at the sunglass display adjacent to the register counter in Splitzer’s while the salesclerk master Sally-ed two customers making purchases. We glanced each other in a ritual dating back millions of years. Finally, “Hi, Allison.” I removed my sunglasses.

She swallowed hard, looked away, back, and away again. “Eh, hello.”

I never imagined I’d instill such terror in another like the legal assistant Jennifer had me.

“I’m not sure I wish to buy anything today. Would you show me what you have in cocktail dresses?”

Her hand reached under the counter bringing a buzzer to life in the distance and the arrival of a woman my mother’s age. “Mrs. Mike.”

“Allison?”

“Could you watch the register for me?”

Mrs. Mike glanced me, scoffed, then nodded.

I wanted to explain I was a customer in need of assistance. I thought fuck her.

Allison’s shoulder blades samba-ed under the blue silk, her shirt tucked in her black cotton skirt, hem to her knee, silk stockings dropping into three-inch black pumps.

“Owner?” I asked, setting my hat and sunglasses on a bench.

Not turning, stopping at a rack, flipping dresses, Allison said, “Worse. Manager.” She displayed a dress. “This?”

“Maybe if I were Mrs. Mike’s age going to a funeral.”

Allison snickered, rolling her eyes.

I melted.

“I like the blue you’re wearing. Swoop neck down to my navel? Tapered waist. Flared out knee length.”

She looked me up and down, rounded the rack, holding up a dress. “It’ll be a touch large. We have a tailor service –”

“Let’s try it on.”

“Let’s.”

She followed me through the curtain into the dressing room. I presented my back to her. “I pulled my shoulder. I’m going to need your help.”

The zipper opened to the small of my back. I turned quickly, dropping my dress off my shoulders. Her sable brown eyes stayed with mine as I put a hand to her shoulder, stepping from the dress. I wondered at her eyebrows, imaging her wooly mammoth, what definition she may have, dark, rich.

“This is beautiful.” She held the satin to herself, looking at the full-length mirror.

“I am in love with silk, real and true.”

“Me, too.”

“I’d offer to let you try it on –”

“Oh, like eighteen sizes too small for me. Custom made. I can tell by the way it fits you.”

I stepped into the cocktail dress, turning. Allison worked the zipper, pulling the waist tight, looking at me in the mirror. “Wow,” she said. “You are really beautiful. Sorry, that came out wrong.”

“No, it didn’t.” I watched her in the mirror.

She blushed, looking away. “Are you Pam?”

I put a light finger on my locket. “I’m sure you know her. Pamala Edwards. Works at Harvest.”

“The girl with all that hair often in short dresses.” She blushed. “We’ve exchanged glances. More accurately, she’s caught me checking her out.”

I sighed. “I love her more than silk.”

Allison returned my sigh. “All I know are rumors and what I see in the newspapers.”

“I’m not a gossip.”

“If it’s true, is it gossip?”

Turning, the zipper fell, turning again, I dropped the dress, my hand on her shoulder, stepping. I kept her eyes knowing I could toss the dress aside, put my left hand to her waist, pull her in for a kiss the likes she’s never had, and fuck her silly.

I might have, too, if there’d been fries with gravy, quiet stories in front of the fire, watching her as she napped, dancing in the woods. “I’ll take this,” I said, referring to the dress.

“Good.” She seemed both disappointed and relieved I let her go.

I understood two things: Jessica, how fucking me was about her anger at her father, Jack, life. The second thing: I wasn’t Jessica.

Power resided in seduction, power that could set the landscape ablaze.

Allison was beautiful, cute in her shyness, approachable. She was wonderful with the customers. I wondered whether a correlation existed between being shy and being great at Sally-ing.

Allison was a thing of beauty, which I didn’t have to fuck to appreciate.

 

I stood on the mall near the railing at the Harvest veranda, Pamala busy bussing and hobnobbing with the customers. I appreciated how truly good at being a human being she was, her interaction with people natural, not an act, not a persona like Allison and myself had to wear. Pamala did not recognize me, which I found amusing.

After fifteen minutes of torturing her, I removed my hat and sunglasses.

Pamala quit the tote, leaving the container on a table, rushing to the railing. “Oh-my-God. Dad said Mr. Bailey was all over a femme fatale!”

We shared a quick kiss. “Once I got into this dress, I just never wanted to take it off. We’ll, not without you around.”

“It’s the hat and glasses, too.”

“Charlotte’s idea.”

She glanced the mall north and south. “Your father’s around here somewhere.”

“He took a run at me. He did not fare well. He did call me a snotty little cunt.”

“Ha! I bet you didn’t know you had a secret family nickname.”

“He didn’t show a glimmer of recognition. I believe that’s what he thinks all women are if they don’t jump to his snappy fingers and witty repartee.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I don’t wish to presumacate.”

“Please, presumacate away.”

“Could I have the pleasure of your company after work at The Tavern for a tasty repast?”

Pamala tilted her head back, narrowing her eyes. “Will there be fries at this tasty repast?”

“Fries aplenty.”

“Will said promised fries aplenty have brown gravy?”

“The brown gravy will flow like the Tigris in the rainy season.”

“We’re so corny.”

“I think just the right amount of corn.”

“Then the answer is yes. I shall join you for this tasty repast.”

“There’s more.”

“My life is already complete. What could possibly be more?”

“After, check with Dad, I’d like to go home with you.”

“I will check because we never, ever presumacate, however, I’m sure it’ll be OK. The other day he was saying now that you don’t have to babysit a house at night, you can stay with us more than once in a while.”

“Good. We can swing by the apartment. I have a box for Mom.”

“She so does love surprise presents.”

“I should really get her something. She’s so good to me.”

“Not a present, then?”

“I need a business evaluated. Not presumacating, I will ask before I drop the box on the floor at her feet.”

“I’m sure it’ll be OK.”

 

Evening brought the roaming crowds of children, teenagers, mostly benevolent, time out of school, out of the house with friends. Troublemakers were easy to spot, mostly boys looking for someone to rape. Of course, I don’t mean that literally.

Dominance exerted over others to deal with anger, self-failings. Jessica didn’t fix anything fucking me.

I was going to stop by the lunch counter in the drug store and fuck with Carol just because I can. Paul was in the back at the grill. “Balls like coconuts,” I said, doing a one-eighty.

Across the way, Playland was open. I didn’t believe that news when Pamala told me. I leaned against the wall across the long hall watching people, mostly teenagers, working the two banks of pinball machines, clotting the center giving me only glimpses of the change booth.

Mary Locke.

Fuck.

My first thought was regret in not taking Gladys Smith up on her offer. My second thought was to drop back up the mall to the cutlery store. Having bounced heads off restroom sinks and linoleum floors, I didn’t doubt I could kill a human being, once again affirming my lost humanity.

“If I had any to lose,” I said into the muddle of tapping shoes, rustling bags, and hushed voices.

An older man stood back from a machine in the middle of the row, shaking his head at his shoes. He wore a sharp tan bowler with black hatband, a navy-blue pin stripped double-breasted suit, white pocket square, black shoes.

A boy a head and a half under him went on his toes yelling something at the man, likely a negative evaluation of his pinballing. The man shrugged.

He looked across the distance at me, catching my eye, winking, tipping his hat.

I tipped my hat in response, walking toward the mall proper, turning, passing the supermarket, exiting, waiting near the street. I did not wait long.

He stepped up beside me, watching off into the distance. “Toni. Where’s your coat.”

I did not turn. “Antoinette, Mr. Serling.”

“Antoinette, where’s your coat?”

“You’re not my father.”

“I’m an asshole, but not nearly as much as him.”

I snickered. “You’ve been busy. He's not my father.”

“Preliminary phone calling. Asking around. I’ll make that note. He’s not your father and you’re not who you are. I thought I might run into you here. Criminals always return to the scene of the crime.”

“I wasn’t sure I’d like you, Mr. Serling. Not that liking you is a prerequisite.”

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s a mall. Shopping. I like your suit – and your bowler, dark blue silk tie, nice. I favor the Panama.”

“Oh, this old thing? Tie was a Christmas present from my niece. I’d never buy such a thing. It’s growing me. I’m not really an alcoholic. I drink out of boredom, I guess. Earlier, I was sitting at my desk wishing for a worthy quest –”

“Whatever story you need tell yourself is fine with me, Mr. Serling. If I learned nothing from my mother and father, it’s that an alcoholic only loves one thing, and that thing wasn’t me.

“I pay for results, not excuses.”

“Understood. Doing this work has made me a show me what you are kind of man, too. People inherently lie.”

“I am glad for this clandestine happenstance.” I looked behind us.

“Do you always talk like you just stepped out of a romance novel?”

“Pretty much.

“The drug store lunch counter. That’s Paul Atkinson working the grill. He's not on their payroll.”

“The dead Paul Atkinson? Balls like coconuts.”

“That’s exactly what I thought. Since he’s not smart enough to go to ground, if you’d do what detectives do, find out which vacant house he’s squatting in, maybe where he’s got his lean-to set up, likely near a railroad track, I’d appreciate it.”

“Any action on my part in mind?”

“Oh, I’m going to like you. Just intelligence for now. It would seem our Mr. Atkinson is counting on no one in his current encounters knowing his real name. I should make sure the newspaper has as current as possible photo.”

“I’ll do the photo thing. I should have his police files in the morning. Should have his mugshot. I want to stop by the paper anyway. I want to run an ad all of a sudden. Need to talk to an ad man. I’ll get eyes on Atkinson now.”

“Files? As in more than one?”

“You don’t miss much. They may not all be his.”

“Watch for mines. He’s paranoid and owns a gun.”

“I own a gun, too, which I own legally. You need not say I know. I’ve killed actual adults, not children playing in an abandoned house.”

“I know. About the killing of adults, not that you haven’t killed children.”

“OK. You have other resources. I get it.”

“You wear a size 10 wide.”

He rolled his eyes. “Are you aware Playland sells drugs?”

“I was not. Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Kids like to talk, boast. They sell to small dealers, kids moving product in the schools, not to users.”

“That does explain all the money they need to launder.”

“I’d like to get into that office.”

Opening my bag, I worked at my keyring. “If they haven’t changed the lock. Be careful.”

“Your concern is touching.” He took a turn glancing the door forty feet behind us. “We shouldn’t be seen together.”

“I am aware.”

“If I do see you in public again, I’ll ignore you.”

“You’ll be the only man that does.”

“Oh, I’m going to like you, too. I’ll walk around the parking lot, go in another door.”

“Aye. I do like the suit.”

“I do own a suit or two. You caught me on a bad day earlier.”

“I’m guessing you’ve had more bad days than good lately.”

“It’s just, well, life is what it is. I do appreciate a worthy quest.” He waved a hand at the air. “I’ll be in the office every day at five, maybe until five thirty if you need get ahold of me. Stop in or call.”

“I appreciate that.” I then suspected there was much more to my Mr. Serling than Stenholm’s inch-thick file conveyed.

 

“The snow came in pretty fast. By the time I realized how fucked I was, I could have made it to highway, much of the snow staying up in the clumpings of pines at first leaving passable paths.”

Pamala rolled her eyes. “Then what, right?”

“Right. Up to my ass in snow dragging my bicycle. I assumed I’d not see a plow truck for days. No one saw it coming, maybe Cassandra of Troy or two.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, Cassandra pissed of Apollo. He gave her the gift that she could see the future, but the curse no one would believe her. Two people told me we were in for big snow.”

“You chose well to stay put. Dad took one look at the snow, suggested Shawn call home, me take her home when the streets were cleared, which didn’t happen forever.”

“I guess she didn’t stay in the guest room.”

Pamala blushed. “Well, she didn’t and we didn’t.”

I rolled my eyes. “I found the clumpiest clumping of pines that ever clumped and set up camp making a tent of pine branches for my tent. With my obsession for being prepared for anything, I bet I could have stayed out there a month, maybe two.”

“I figured exactly that.”

“Michelle said you weren’t worried.”

“I worry anytime I don’t have eyes on you. I’m worried a bus has your name on it. I’m worried some jerk with a grudge is going to kill you. I’m worried a meteor rock is going to land on your head. I was not worried a couple feet of snow would kill you. You own this stuff. You dance naked in it. You’re more of the storm than you are of humanity.”

I sighed, not happy to hear my own personal assessment of myself coming from Pamala. “I love you more than dancing in the snow. You know you will never lose me.”

“Speaking of wraiths.”

“Antoinette came to me once, just as real as you are right now. We had a vivid conversation.”

“I was wondering about Jody. What did you talk about?”

“Jody did not manifest. I talked to her anyway.”

“Will it make me cry?”

“Yes.”

“What did you and Antoinette talk about, then?”

“Oddly, my delusional image of who she was when alive.”

Pamala closed her eyes. “That makes me dizzy.”

“That’s what I thought. Her father, it seems, demanded she be always perfect, right down to the polish on her Mary Janes. I mistook that persona for her.”

“The shiny shoes does explain your obsession with your boots. What was her?”

“She didn’t get to that. She insisted we dance.”

“That would be your answer, then.”

“Fuck.”

Pamala pushed a fry though gravy. “I know, Toby, and it’s OK with me. The real you, the authentic you only touches this world when you're dancing naked in the woods.” Left hand under the fry, she made an offering. “It’s OK you’re more gravy than grave to me.”

I accepted the fry into my mouth.

“Pamala, I –”

“You, you and me. This is beyond the words. I’ve loved you since before we met. How weird does that sound?”

“That does not sound weird at all.”

“I meant that rhetorically. Anyway, I got this chicken and cart thing going on, you know. Which came first.”

“I think you mean –”

“I know what I mean, Toby. I recognized you. Dad and Mr. Locke recognized you. Dad said to Mr. Locke, Let’s put these two in a room together and see if they don’t blast the Eastern Seaboard out of existence in a blinding fireball.

“My the horse or the egg is: Are you really my soulmate or did I jam you into the mold of what I was looking for. Go on and give me soulmates don’t exist and I may reach across the table and slap you so hard, our grandchildren will feel it.”

“I actually agree –”

“Toby.”

“Pamala?”

“What I’m saying is since the first moment I saw you, I saw your authentic self, that otherworldly creature who dances with the snow around the fire in the woods. Like Dad and Mr. Locke, I saw a glimmer, a hint.

“I saw it just the same.”

“May I say something now?”

“I love you, real and true. You may, as long as it’s not a slapable offense.”

“There were a couple of –”

“Toby.”

“I wanted to say I agree with you, with all that. I survived the minefield that was two drunks for parents. I had moments, hours, days when I thought they’d kill me or worse, passing thoughts wishing they would, washing all the fear away.

“I can’t say how old I wasn’t. I’d just read The Snow Queen. I stood in my front yard, face to the sky, snow dancing around me, wishing for that sliver of broken mirror to lodge in my eye, that I could go live with the Snow Queen.

“I ran until my lungs hurt, standing at the end of a street, a path into the woods calling me. I thought of Hansel and Gretel. I could find the witch. My parents would be free of me. I’d be witch shit.

“What I found was sanctuary, the break in the trees over the lake, everything covered in snow. Magical.”

“Magical,” Pamala echoed.

“I wanted to be that magical thing. I stripped naked, my arms outstretched, my face turned to the snow, the storm, the wind. Standing there, I cried, purging all the pain. I had no idea at the time it wasn’t flesh and blood Antoinette. She was there.

“Take my hand, she said. I did. We danced for the first time.”

Pamala waved her hand in front of her face. “Allergies!”

“I did not have the framework to understand back then. What came out of the woods wasn’t me. I mean what came back to the house wasn’t that scared child. I have entertained the idea I’m a wraith.”

“Toby. I do not know what you are, but I do know that you are.”

“I have said that to Antoinette.”

“You’re more gravy than grave. Gravy over fries is what Hera would eat if she were here.”

“Speaking of wild dreams and ghosts. Our house.”

“Even with blueprints covering the wall, I’ve not made it real yet. I cannot lose what is not real.”

“We can’t build on that lot.”

“You find the perfect lot, the universe says, Hold on a minute, Toby. Let me squirt this all over your face.”

“Firstly, eww. Secondly, that’s exactly correct. Seems some dead Indians have squatter's rights. Mr. Stenholm is looking into the claim and the zoning. I’m not excited to go on the warpath with dead Indians. Though I’ve read a couple of conqueror centric stories on the Lenape, I’d like to dig up – see what I did there? – some actual archeological studies, which still may be centric, but not as bias.”

“There are such things?”

“I bet there must be. Learned term papers, maybe doctorial decertations at the local colleges. I’ll put Kyra Sullivan down the library on it. She loves showing off her research skills.”

“You know you’re pretty weird.”

“That’s what the five people who like me actually like about me. I may buy the property anyway.”

“Why?”

“It’s prime, over the river. The price is a steal. I figure in twenty years when some rich old white man wants to develop the property, the Indians won’t be important anymore. I’ll sell for one hundred times what I pay for it.”

“No, really?”

“I thought I’d make it a park for children to play and people to walk their dogs.”

“That way, the dead Indians won’t get lonely.”

“That, too.”

I may have smirked. “Shawn, huh.”

Pamala blushed. “We didn’t, if that’s what you think. Not that I didn’t think of it and not that the opportunity didn’t present itself.”

“Cold winter night, time in front of the fire, snuggling under the heavy quilt overnight snowed in. Yeah, I can imagine.”

“I like Shawn.”

“So do I.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Neither did I.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Shawn is a woman living in hiding. She’s spent years playing someone else to everyone around her. You, and you and I, and I let her be her. When she had her hand down your shirt in the limo the moment was magical and tragic – tragic because so few people in the world would understand just how beautiful it was.

“Not so complicated.”

“Not when you say it that way.”

“We’ve kissed, not so seriously –”

“She said.”

“Well, we could almost call it making out.”

“We’ve made out – seriously.”

“I told Jessica to keep her fingers out of Shawn.”

“Eh, why?”

“It’s not even my place to say. I don’t feel Shawn would handle the reject well.”

“That’s the difference between you and me. I think about the fingers inside her. You jump to the consequences.”

“Yet, there you are in your bed not fucking her.”

“Maria.”

“Your sister?”

“Yeah, before the universe crashed into her, changing her forever, we were that close on cold winter nights sleeping together. Shawn has that, eh –”

“Innocence?”

“That’s the word. There were moments not awake yet not asleep, I had my sister back. As much as I wanted to fuck Shawn, I didn’t want to destroy that magic.”

I shrugged. “Maybe someday.”

“You?”

“Definitely not me.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Same reason I’d not fuck Jessica again.”

“Is this going to get complicated?”

“Actually not. Let me first say I’ve been masturbating since I was in the womb.”

“A metaphor.”

“Sure. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t.” I rolled my eyes. “Soothing, like a hot bath on a cold winter night. Like my pleasant time spent with Antoinette. Like leaving myself to be Antoinette – like sharing the experience with Antoinette.”

“Your imaginary Antoinette.”

“OK, but I prefer otherworldly, I think. It became clear to me one hot summer night after midnight. I’d gone to The Tower, sat watching the highway, my cheeseburger –”

“Just the thought of The Tower’s cheeseburgers makes me what to put my hand up my dress.”

“Right? Anyway, there she is. Antoinette watching me from the window.”

“Your reflection.”

“No. Antoinette – watching me. We engaged in conversation, which turned into flirting so serious, The Tower should have burned to the ground. I fed her a fry and to this day, I remember the fry going through the glass, Antoinette giggling.

“To say I was on fire is a gross understatement. When I got home, I jammed a chair against my bedroom door, lay on my bed and for three hours we fucked.”

“You left out the beer bottle.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ballentine Beer bottle, a minor participant, which only held my interest, ironically, for about two minutes.”

“Why ironically.”

“The average my five rapists lasted inside me.”

“I had a kind of date with an older boy just because he asked me to the school play, and I said yes. He’s dropping me off, his dick comes out. It’s not like he had me pushed down on a toilet, so I’m not in any kind of panic.

“He’s got my hand, pulling, moaning, hyperventilating. Weird. He’s working his hand on his dick, the dick flopping around. I’m curious more than anything else. Leaning to my right away from him, I let him guild my hand.

“Kielbasa.”

I laughed.

“I no sooner grab hold, here comes Old Faithful.”

“I see what you did there.”

Pamala put her hand to her mouth. “I did, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Do they all squirt that far?”

“How far is far?”

“I don’t know. Six inches a couple of times.”

“Uncle Gropey was good for a couple twelve-inch spunks, which he was happy to lay across my face. Mark, not so squirty, still liking the face. The way Bill came, I thought he should have busted my insides out.”

“Eww, Toby.”

“All things considered, if I had to have something shoved inside me, I’d choose a Ballentine Beer bottle.”

“I’m going to talk you into a cucumber.”

“I’ve read about –”

“What I learned from my one date with a boy, which was the real reason I bothered saying yes, is I’m gay as the day is long. Not only did I find nothing appealing about his dancing lizard or kissing him – eww – but I really don’t like spending time with boys. I prefer the company of women.”

“I feel you just haven’t met the right boy yet.”

We laughed much too loud for where we were.

“That’s the thing, Pamala, I was getting at. Jessica, for example, fucking me like she did smacks way too much like Uncle Gropey coming on my face, turning to the sink, and washing his hands. I told Jessica as much. I never want to be someone’s stop-by-and-jerk-me-off.”

“Now I understand what you’ve said.” She blushed. “I don’t feel I mind so much being a hit-and-run.”

“I figured, the way you’ve groomed to suit Jessica.”

“What?”

I shrugged. “You could have asked me first.”

“What would you have said?”

“I would have said you should do what makes you feel good about yourself.”

She squirmed. “Turns out not such a good idea.”

“You’ll have to shave every day – like Michelle. Well, not every day.”

“The magazines?”

“A veritable cornucopia of valuable information. It’s going to be like making out with a guy in need of a shave.”

Blushing, Pamala looked at the remains of roast beef sandwich. “That’s what I didn’t like about kissing that boy, just to kick off a long list. First kiss, his face is coming at me, his tongue waggling like he’s a lizard.”

“Girls are softer. Grown men are worse.”

“I don’t understand Michelle. Has she ever, well, kissed a girl?”

“Me.”

“You?”

“I told you. Kind of.”

“You did.”

“We made out. Well, she was making out with me, I was pretending she was Antoinette. I have an incredible imagination.”

“It was the penis.”

“It was.”

“The reason I asked was, well, he has a date.”

“I have mixed feelings. I don’t know if she’s talked herself into liking boys because she feels more comfortable dressed as a girl or that she really likes boys.”

“Persona. Fitting into the role. Have you talked to her about the gender bending?”

“I’ve read a book or eight, but I’m far from being a therapist. Adult magazines are much kinder to deviation than the published academic books are. I’m a deviation, after all, and I just don’t buy what I’m reading about me, you know?”

“Therapist or not, you’re all she has.”

“Twice she’s made a general comment about how his father would like Michelle but has never liked Michael.” I released a long sigh that was so sigh, it should have opened a portal to another dimension. “I’m hoping he discovers he likes girls, thus being a boy, for him, isn’t so terrible.”

“Huh?”

“His life would get a whole lot easier. Sure, she’s living the dream now. She can’t walk down the street without boys falling at her feet in worship. She’s soon going to be facing a time when it’s more difficult for her to pass until she doesn’t pass at all. Every day she looks less and less like my Antoinette.

“Bill Locke told me he felt he was nothing more than a lumberjack in a dress. He was not an unattractive woman in her fifties. That’s not what he wanted to see in the mirror. He wanted to see the nubile girl he once was. Losing our youth awaits us all, if we live long enough. With Bill, his life was devastated by that before he hit thirty.”

“Now I get why old men would dress like teen girls like at the dinner.”

“I dance naked in the woods with a dead girl, sometimes bring her home and fuck her. I don’t judge.”

“I wasn’t judging, well now I’m not. I’m saying I understand. That’s got to be a torment, not able to be what you are.”

“Which brings us back around to Shawn and why I love watching you two together.”

 

I rolled up on the sidewalk in front of the witch house. “Office Martin?” I greeted.

Martin twisted his face, shaking his head, not turning. “Hi, Toby. Kids.”

Several trashcans had been upturned on the porch, Witch spraypainted in red letters across the clapboard siding.

“Kids,” I repeated. “I’d bet boys.”

“You’d win that bet. An annual spring tradition.”

“I’m not fond of boys.”

“I know.”

I glanced the street. “Seems like an awful lot of people here for vandalism.”

“She’s dead, Toby.”

“Mrs. Stiles? Dead?”

“Eh, yes. Did you know her?”

“Met her last month. I was going to do some yardwork.”

“I’m going to need to take your statement. We need to talk, anyway.”

“Uh? That’s about the statement. I know we need to talk.”

“With the vandalism, they’ve not crossed murder off their list. The Chief feels we’re too inept to investigate a murder, which this isn’t –”

“Mrs. Styles being like a million years old.”

“Right. So he’s called in the county investigators. I’ll take your statement so County doesn’t have to.” He flipped the blue cover of his small notebook. “You just met with her the one time?”

“Yes, Officer Martin. Week or so before Easter.” I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be over on Elm, then Newton.”

“Uh?”

“Martin. I thought you’d be canvassing the neighbors,” a man said sharply from behind Martin.

“Antoinette Blanc,” I said, offering a hand, which he took. “I cut grass in the neighborhood.”

“Inspector Bradley,” he said, nodding to his left. “Inspector Mathers.”

I took her hand, holding her milk chocolate eyes behind black rimmed glasses not unlike my father’s. “Inspector.”

“You know the neighborhood, then.” Inspector Joe Bradley was my father’s age, looking so much younger. Sandy brown hair, white walls, a flattop, he filled his dark battleship suit rounding out the cliché with a stiff collared bright white shirt, thin black tie.

“Some.” I exerted a Herculean effort to keep his eyes.

“Then you know who this did,” Inspector April Mathers dropped ambiguously, Mathers a woman edging on thirty years old, full-figured as compared to my skin and bones, gray skirt trying to be black to her knees, jacket to match open, white button down, thin black tie, hair cut like mine a light walnut shell, pleasing milk chocolate eye.

Squaring to her, I held her eyes. “I do not.”

“Did you do this?” she asked.

Without scoff, without blinking, without offense, I answered, “No, I did not do this, assuming this to be the vandalism.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“You know who did,” she insisted.

“I do not,” I repeated.

“Who do you think did?” Bradley pushed.

I shrugged. “I really have no way of knowing. I am not by nature a social animal.”

Matters snickered. “Sure, mind your own business. Leave it to law enforcement to solve all the problems.”

I offered another shrug, which should have flattened the landscape. “You’re looking for children, minors, old enough that their parents don’t have them on the leash, that they’re out after dark. Boys, they’ll be boys. After all, boys will be boys.

“Check with the school. Not school records. Talk to the principal and teachers. Ask which boys should have been disciplined repeatedly and weren’t. What would you call them, Officer Martin?”

“Eh, well, sure. The usual suspects.”

“You amuse me, Toni,” Mathers said with a smirk.

“Antoinette. You amuse me as well, Inspector Mathers. Usually, my sarcasm gets lost in the ether.”

“The scar? On your cheek?”

“Boys being boys.”

She produced a business card. “If there’s anything –”

“There is.” I glanced from Mathers to Bradley and back. “Jody Demarko.”

Mathers cocked an eyebrow. Bradley looked like I slapped him across the face.

“What do you know about that?” Bradley spit at me, his mien surprising Martin and Mathers.

“Shawn Beedle.”

Mathers rolled her eyes. “Yes. I’ve spoken to her many times. Cousin, right?”

“A very good friend of mine.”

“I see.”

“Concerned no one cares.”

“We have an open file. We have many open files, which I look at, do follow-ups at least each week. Given your stellar profile of the boys who vandalized Mrs. Stiles house, what has your sleuthing informed you concerning Jody Demarko?”

I rolled my eyes so hard, they almost got stuck in my head. I turned on Bradley. “Do you know the Aesop about the lion and the thorn?”

“Uh?”

“Lion gets a thorn in her paw, can’t get it out,” Mathers said, maybe too amused.

“Mouse, normally a snack for the lion, comes along, pulls the thorn out.”

“Not only do they become friends, the lion doesn’t eat the mouse. My mother would read to us every night.”

“I have the complete collection in one volume. I’d be happy to read to you sometime.”

“That’s inappropriate in so many ways.”

“You can do each other’s hair,” Bradley chimed in.

“My point is, Inspector Joe Bradley, I’d never throw someone who pulled my tit out of the wringer under the bus. Having said that.” I turned on Mathers. “Jody was last seen at the mall, in Playland with eight of her friends. Her eight friends all got home that night, Jody did not. None of her eight friends remember her leaving Playland.

“If I were doing the investigation, I’d look hard at anyone associated with Playland, look for, particularly men, who may have a predilection for teen children of the female persuasion, records of such never making it into official files because, like in the school, boys being boys always get a pass.”

Mathers looked up from taking notes. “I don’t recall any of that in the file.”

“I’ll be glad to make a statement.”

“We assumed her a runaway from the beginning,” Bradley said.

I shrugged dismissively. “Inspector Bradley, you know. Inspector Mathers, you do not.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mathers asked.

Bradley pursed his lips.

I fanned two business cards between my thumb and index finger, offering the cards forward. “If either of you wish to question me further, you may feel free to contact my lawyer.”

“What?” Mathers asked, plucking Thomas Stenholm’s card from my fingers.

I winked at Bradley. “I’ve been in the box before. This’s been a real bag of monkeys. Good luck finding the boys who vandalized Mrs. Stiles house, likely scaring her to death and Inspector April Mathers, best of luck breaking through the wall of patriarchy cloaking the person who kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered Jody Demarko.

“Here’s a tip. Ignore the medical examiner’s report. Talk to the medical examiner off the record. If there’s a woman assistant in the office, start with her.”

Mathers looked up from her notebook. “Please explain. If you have information –”

“Lawyer. I’ve said all I’m going to say. Officer Martin.”

“Antoinette?”

“Elm, then Newton.” I mounted my bike.

“I’m tempted to bring you in,” Mathers threatened.

“Wouldn’t help,” Bradley warned.

 

Over on Elm, I put my hands on my hips, standing over Michelle and my lawnmower.

“I got halfway through, mower died.”

“Gas.”

“Gas. How stupid am I?”

“It’s not that difficult to miss obvious shit. Had it happen to me once, that was enough.” I surveyed the yard. “Rake out the gardens, pull anything that looks like a weed, I’ll get the gas.”

 

At my garage, I found the gallon can empty, off to Connor’s.

“Toby,” Keith greeted at the pump.

“We good?”

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

“Yeah, we’re good.”

“Yeah. Sorry. Michelle, well, pissed me off. I said a bunch of shit that wasn’t true.”

“When I’m angry, I find it best not to say anything.”

“Good advice. Michelle confused me, you know.”

“I don’t.”

“I met this guy, who I liked.”

“Michael.”

“Yeah, him. Then he wanted to pretend he was a girl.”

“I’m learning this gets complicated.”

“I hear that.”

“She’s not pretending to be a girl.”

“I get that, and I don’t.”

“Me, too. The thing is, Keith, it’s not about you. Well, it is and it isn’t. Michelle is trying to find her way. You complicate her trying to figure out who she is as a girl by wanting to blow her every chance you get.”

Keith blushed, biting his lip. “I can see how that may complicate things. She never said –”

“She can’t explain what she doesn’t understand herself.”

“That makes terrible sense.”

“Good way to put it. So, we’re good?”

“You and me? Sure?”

“You are one of a handful of people who know who I really am.”

“Antoinette Blanc.”

“Correct answer.”

“I read the papers. I know what you’ve been caught up in. I’m kind of in awe, you know, and I’ll admit, a bit scared.”

“Scared?”

“I suspect if I ever came after you in anyway, they’d never find the body.”

I kept his eyes, digging a quarter from my pocket for the gasoline.

“Fuck, Toby, I was looking for some sort of assurance.”

“You know, that never find the body thing can work for anyone who makes the bad decision to come after you, too.”

“I didn’t - know that.”

“You beat the piss out of Mark when I couldn’t protect myself.”

“Boy, has the coin flipped, huh?”

“I bet his head still hurts.”

“That’s why I’ll aways be your friend, never your enemy. I feel I should drop to my knee again.”

“Please don’t.”

 

I approached the car as it rolled to a stop on Newton. “I don’t know about you, Toby. I don’t know,” Officer Martin addressed, climbing from the vehicle.

“What did you warn Keith Oswald about,” I greeted back.

“He is, or should I say was, one of usual suspects. There were a couple of incidents –”

“Boys being boys. I ask because he’s one of the few friends I have.”

“Understood.”

Obviously, he wasn’t being candid, which I understood.

“Mathers wanted me to pick you up. Bradley talked her down. It was quite the argument. Bradley another one of those friends of yours?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure yet.” I rolled my eyes to the clouds. “April Mathers. I like the way she carries hersef.

“I pulled your county file last week.”

“You can do that?”

“Well, since you’re dead, no one really cared. Some resume.”

“Stay focused, shoulder to the wheel, all that motivational shit.”

“I need to know –”

“I’ll answer with the truth, the best I know the truth to be. However, revealing to you who I was for mutually assured destruction, not a front row seat to my life.”

He pursed his lips. “I have a limit to what I let pass.”

“Me, too.”

“I watched closely, your dance with Inspector Mathers. You’re the master at saying what you’re not saying.”

“The authorities have discovered the body of Jody Demarko. Should hit the news any moment now. They’re going to try to spin it, which is why I told Mathers to have the off the record conversation. Jody Demarko was kidnapped, held, raped repeatedly over time, murdered.”

“My God. By whom? Do you know?”

“I do. Best I not tell you. Yet.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “They may try to put the murder on you.”

“Now that I’m dead. Sure.”

“You tell Mathers, not Bradley?”

“Bradley is one of the spinners.”

“Really? He’s like an all-star at County. Good at what he does.”

“I need to have a private conversation with him.”

“I could arrange –”

“No need.”

“OK. I have a couple of things. Have you ever murdered anyone?”

“Not yet.”

“Come on, Antoinette.”

“You may call me Toby. It’s not like I’m planning to. You’ve seen my file. There’s people out there who’d love to bury me in The Pines. I’m not going to let that happen. By any means necessary.”

He nodded. “Have you ever stolen anything?”

“I have not.”

“Nothing? Really?”

I pointed. “There’s a corner store about eight blocks –”

“Hunter’s.”

“Yes. When I was a child, the other children would steal candy. They pretended it was an on-a-dare game. It was just stealing.”

“I was thinking more along the line of money. Large sums of money.”

“I have not stolen any money, large sums or otherwise.”

“There’s close to a million dollars missing, according to the file.”

“Or so they say.”

“I can play this, too. Since you don’t know who took the money, who do you think took the money.”

“Bill Locke. The man who raped me.”

“Bill Locke of the quarterly parties Bill Locke? The man who was mistakenly arrested –”

“No mistake about it. They had him dead on all counts, not that I’ve seen the counts. Guilty.”

“Raped you?”

“Yeah, he set me up to be the fall girl –”

“That would explain all the evidence against you.”

“As the federales stormed the front door, I slipped out the backdoor, going to ground, changing my identity, leaving Locke with no scapegoat to point at. That’s about all you need to know about me or should I say the other me.”

“I like this neighborhood. I like this job. Both quiet. I hear you loud and clear about Bradley and the spinning. I never want to be a spinner.”

“Then, here I am.”

“Chaos.”

“I don’t mean to be. I like this neighborhood, too. Quiet. I used to live on the next block. My plan is to mow grass, keep my head down, live quietly. I really need nothing from you. Other than maybe your trust that I won’t blow your life up.”

“I wish I could stop. Life would be so much easier.”

“Officer William Martin. I’m not looking for a front row seat to your life, either.”

“It’s just, well, kind of nice someone knows. Someone I can talk to –”

“We aren’t friends, Officer Martin. I will not be your confessor. That never ends well. Don’t take it personally. Most my life I’ve not had friends. Today, I keep my circle tight. You’re floating in that vague ether about me not a friend, but yet not not a friend.”

“I think I understand. I’ve spent much of my life because, eh, I’m different, enjoying my time alone, if you know what I mean.”

“Now, once in a great while, you sit in a motel room by yourself all dressed up. When you dare.”

A swath of silence followed a long sigh from Martin. Finally, he said, “If I can ever be of service –”

“Like killing a spider or carrying a sofa up the steps?”

“Maybe go as far as helping you move. We can be that kind of friends.”

“Short of exchanging Christmas presents friends. Yes, we can be that.”

He opened the car door, offering a sharp nod. “Your file, the newspapers. All I know is scuttlebutt. I’d like to know the real story sometime.”

“When we’re the kind of friends who would help each other bury a body, no questions asked.”

“You set a high bar, Antoinette.”

“Go on and call me Toby, Officer Martin. That’s a step in that direction.”

“Billy.”

“Only when no one is in earshot.”

“I caught that when the investigators rolled up on us. You’re scary.”

 

I stood my back against the wall across from the mirror in Expressions Dance Studio watching Shawn flawlessly execute their version of the Charleston. I’d given up on getting good at the dance once I realized the dance, their routine, required other people.

Dance, their routine anyway, was a spectacle. “I don’t do spectacles.”

The music fell away, eight women breaking.

I entered from the darkness into the light. Shawn stopped short, offering a hand, which I took.

“Long day, no shower,” she greeted.

“I don’t mind. I love the way you smell when you have a long day, no shower.”

“You’re weird,” she said as we gathered each other up in an embrace that should have crumbled the walls to dust.

“Busy?”

“Homework.”

“Bring it over. Do it at my apartment? I’ll make hot chocolate.”

The room had emptied, almost.

“You two need to be more discreet,” Dasey Longardner threw on us as if a bucket of cold water.

We untangled leisurely. I held Shawn’s hand and eyes. “I’m really sorry for your loss, Mrs. Longardner.”

“I might even believe you sincere if you were to look at me when you say it.”

“We shall continue this,” I told Shawn, releasing her hand, turning to Longardner.

“I’d have thought being a spiritualist, you’d not require postering to know how I feel.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Allow me to repeat, then.” I offered a slight bow, eyes closed. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Longardner.”

“Thank you.”

“Toby,” Shawn said.

I kept my attention on Longardner. “Go on, get changed.” I narrowed my eyes. “Discreet?”

“People like us –”

“We are not the same.”

“I mean homosexuals.”

“I haven’t gotten my rule book yet.”

“Child –”

“Don’t child me. It’s disrespectful.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m trying to give you advice that can –”

“Then don’t come off making it sound like an edict. Bad things happen to women perceived to be different. County thinks that’s why your aunt’s dead. I was raped by four men, the only reason being I’m a girl.”

She released a wounded sigh. “I think that’s the point. Flaunting your homosexuality will attract more trouble.”

“Expressing my feelings for Shawn is not flaunting my homosexuality or anything else.”

“I’ve said my peace. We can agree to disagree.”

“I wasn’t trying to convince you of anything.”

“OK.”

“Harriet Stiles.”

“Yes?”

“Are there any other witches in your family?”

“Such an odd question.”

“From what I read, being a witch is a lineage system, which means –”

“I know what that means. I don’t know who Harriet may have passed the tradition down to. We weren’t close, for obvious reasons.”

“Not obvious to me.”

She cocked her head. “I’m a homosexual.”

“And?”

“It’s not my place.”

“Oh, Mrs. Longardner, call me child if you must, but do make it your place.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, where to start. Witchcraft is the First Religion.” She bit her lip. “Forget that. Witchcraft is not so much a religion as it is a practice.”

“Thus craft.”

“They’re tight-lipped.”

“I can imagine. Inner Temple, all that.”

“It’s a religion based on nature.”

“I’d gathered something like that within the bias of the books I’d read.”

“The core of nature, the core of creation centers on reproduction.”

“Yikes. I was going to ask Mrs. Stiles to handfast Pam and me.”

Longardner laughed. “Oh, I would have loved to have seen her face. That would have killed her for sure.”

I shrugged dismissively. “Well, she would have had an opportunity to proselytize.”

“Witches do not proselytize.”

Shawn’s long-day-no-bath washed over me from behind. “Toby?”

I did not turn from Longardner. “Yeah, Shawn. I think we’re done here. Are we done?”

“Yes, child. For now.” She offered open arms.

“I think not, Mrs. Longardner.

 

Part 20