hop act made its own ring tone-Darren made sure that Moni knew he wasn’t done showing up at her door. Telling him, “Get the hell out of my life,” couldn’t chase him away after seven years.
Moni unfolded the letter halfway and read the first few lines. They sounded like the deep growl of his voice inside her head:
You made a big mistake ignoring me. You’re my girl. Next time I call, you answer me.
This is my house. You better give me the new key. Maybe I’ll find my own way in.
He should have written her an apology after she caught him banging that ho doggy style in the back seat of a purple Cadillac on her late night sweep a couple months back. Darren had just assumed she’d forgive him, like she had the times she’d caught him flirting around in clubs. But not that time. Not after she saw him groaning uncontrollably as he yanked on the girl’s spiky hair while he laid it to her.
Moni crumpled up the letter, tossed it on her grill and lit it up. The paper crackled in the fire. The words were burned away as if they never existed.
If only she could banish the real Darren so easily. She loved his laugh and his take-no-shit attitude. With arms of black steel and tribal tattoos, Darren made sure no one messed with her, especially her father. With a deranged killer lurking out there, Moni could use some extra muscle by her side. Too bad she didn’t hit the weights more before volunteering as a foster parent.
She rested her hand on Mariella’s shoulder as the girl stared at the gas flames consuming the letter.
“Don’t worry. That’s not what’s for lunch today,” Moni said. “I’m just sending somebody up in smoke.”
The girl nodded. Returning to her seat with an easy gait, she seemed happy that Moni had burned the letter, even though she couldn’t have seen what had been on it. When Moni’s cell phone rang with the Dueling Banjoes tone for Sneed’s caller ID, they both frowned. Moni thought she had the day off so she could make Mariella feel comfortable in her home and, Sneed hoped, wring some information out of her. Surprise, surprise, the big man didn’t trust her to make it to noon.
“Mariella has been making some progress,” Moni said as she answered the phone. “Just a few minutes ago she…”
“Can it. You’re too late, girl,” Sneed said. “The killer has struck again-Matt Kane. He was the guy who found the girl first. He left a wife and kids-a damn good fella.”
Moni pressed the phone against her thigh so Sneed wouldn’t hear her whimper. She went black for a second, as if she were taking a plunge inside a powerless elevator. A man had died because of her. She sat on her porch nurturing this girl instead of using her to thwart another murder. The so-called sworn officer had failed to protect him.
Her father’s words echoed: “You been fucking up my whole life, you little whore! All you do is screw up!”
Placing the phone back against her ear, Moni heard Sneed breathing with measured intensity. Instead of asking where she had been the whole time, he had waited her out.
“That’s horrible. I’ll be there right away, sir.” Moni stopped herself. She couldn’t take Mariella to another murder scene. “I’ll see you in the office and review the evidence. Were there any witnesses?”
“Witnesses?” Sneed huffed. “We only got one of those and you know all about that.” He let that dagger sink in. “The problem is; I reckon our killer does too. If he knew Kane had visited the murder scene, I bet he’s caught on that she survived.”
“He knows!” Moni gasped. Mariella gazed at her in bewilderment. She rubbed her hand against the girl’s cheek in a soothing gesture, but Moni’s palm trembled so much that it had the opposite effect. Mariella slumped in her seat, crossed her arms and raised her knees in a cocoon around her tender body. Those scrawny limbs wouldn’t protect her. The monster had devoured her parents. It wouldn’t overlook the succulent young one. It would pluck off her head as easy as pulling a grape from a vine. It would slurp out her lungs, her liver and her kidneys. The little girl would become another hollow corpse with the bloody water lapping over her pale flesh.
As a young girl, Moni had run and hid in her bedroom closet when she heard her mother screaming. She had cowered in the corner at the sound of her father’s earth-shattering stomps and prayed she wouldn’t be next. Too often, she was. Moni wouldn’t let Mariella’s turn come. Taming her nerves so her hand held steady, she stroked her palm through Mariella’s silky hair. Like a turtle slowly poking its head out from its shell, the girl unfolded her body and sat straight in her chair.
“I know you didn’t sign up for this,” Sneed said. “Why don’t I assign her to protective custody? Harrison can guard her. That man could stop a bear.”
She had seen Harrison take down violent drunks like bowling pins, so she didn’t doubt it. He’d follow Sneed’s orders, but he didn’t care about Mariella. He’d ask her uncomfortable questions about the murders and press her too hard, Moni thought. The girl could only blossom in Moni’s care.
“No thanks,” Moni told Sneed as she offered the child an assuring grin. “She’ll do just fine with me.”
“Yeah, I hope you’re right,” said Sneed. Biting her lower lip, Moni could feel that he hoped she was wrong. Sneed was itching to break the girl down under the hot lights of an interrogation chamber. “I’ll see you at the station after I clean up here. Bring your tampons, cause it’s gonna be a long day.”
Ignoring Sneed’s boorish advice, Moni packed an extra set of new clothes for Mariella into her new backpack and tossed in an extra notebook. The girl followed her warily to her car. Mariella took slow, gaping steps as if she were approaching the ledge of a cliff. Taking her hand firmly, Moni led her along. Mariella wouldn’t sit in the back seat, so Moni put her beside her in the front. Every time she got in a car since the event Moni had been by her side.
“It’s okay to do this, for now,” Moni told her as she slid into the driver’s seat and started her Ford’s engine. “But I can’t be there every second, baby. You’ll see that you’ll be okay even with…” Moni saw the beady black eyes in the rearview mirror and screamed. Mariella didn’t join in. The girl ducked underneath the dashboard. The officer turned around all the way and faced the raven pressed against her rear window with its neck twisted at a wretched angle. Its wings were flayed and torn. It looked like the bird had been steamrolled by a pickup truck and tossed on her car.
Moni stumbled out of the car and drew her gun. She didn’t see anyone besides the old man next door. He gazed at her all bug-eyed because, after all, the old white man saw a black woman with a gun. Moni lowered her firearm. After snapping a few photos with her cell phone camera in case they needed it for the crime lab, Moni reached for the tip of the raven’s wing. She pinched the fragile bone between her fingers and started peeling the stiff bird off her windshield. Its beak hit the glass. She figured its head had gone limp when it snapped its neck. The beak tapped the glass again-harder. The raven whirled its head around at her. It opened its mouth without making a sound and hacked up purple ooze onto her trunk.
“What the fuck?” Moni backed away and reached for her gun. The wings and talons that had been stiff seconds ago sprang alive. The raven rose from her windshield. She aimed the gun at its head, which still hung at an awkward angle. Before she could squeeze off a shot, the raven bounded from her car and launched into flight. It flew away crookedly-narrowly clearing the trees on the other side of the street. She would have assumed it had a broken wing if she hadn’t seen it up close. Only a few feathers remained atop Moni’s trunk and in her driveway.
Moni fitted her gun back into the holster. If that thing had really meant her harm-like pecking her eyeballs out-she wouldn’t have drawn in time. Much like Darren had left his message against her door earlier, someone else had left a message for the girl. Darren wanted Moni back. Someone even more sinister wanted Mariella.
Chapter 5
Fish don’t have eyelids, but their eyes can still grow wide, and bug out all red. That described the look of the several hundred fish that floated lifelessly on their sides in the Indian River Lagoon. Their mouths and gills were extended painfully in a final gasp for oxygen rich water. Some of them had shiny red burns on their scales and fins.
“Total bummer,” Aaron Hughes said as he surveyed the fish kill from the skiff motoring by. “At least the birds won’t go hungry.”
Piloting the craft with his glasses on, Professor Herbert Swartzman didn’t dignify him with a response. After
