'He's pricked out to the max. Maybe I'll go take the bastard's head off.'
'Stay cool, Harry. I can deal with Squill.'
'He's taking over. I think I was just suspended.'
'Any sign of Ava… Harry?'
I heard a popping sound and angry voices. Then Squill's voice filled my head. 'How are you at bagging groceries, Ryder?' he said. The headset crackled. And went off.
In the distance I saw the gray-blue of Mobile Bay, dark clouds rolling from the west like a shroud. 'Big storm coming,' the pilot said.
CHAPTER 32
'You're suspended, Ryder. That's just the first move. Then it's off the force.'
Squill jumped me the second I stepped from the chopper into the parking lot of the motel on the northwest side of downtown. Beside him was his fresh monkey, Bobby Neeland. The new chimp had new shades. Harry's unmarked screeched into the lot behind them. I pushed past Squill and sprinted to Harry.
'Ava?' I yelled.
He shook his head. 'Nothing yet. There's some odd stuff in Lindy's basement. We were looking it over when '
Squill was red faced, voice barely controlled. Neeland looked like he was having a jolly time under the captain's umbrella. Squill jabbed a finger at Harry. 'One more word to Ryder and you're gone, too, Nautilus.'
Harry ignored Squill. 'I got a woman in the motel for you to talk to, Cars. Here's her story '
Neeland was in the full testosterone bloom of being Squill's selectman.
He stuck his face in Harry's. 'Listen to the captain, Nautilus. He wants your black face to shut up right-'
Barely turning from me, Harry buried his fist in Neeland's gut. Neeland made a few little wet sounds until his knees crumpled and he fell to the asphalt like a gunnysack of mashed potatoes.
Squill said, 'You're both under arrest for assaulting an officer in the performance of his duties. It's the end of life as you know it.'
Two cruisers bore down the street, lights flashing. Squill waved them over. Neeland tottered woozily to one knee, a green strand of snot hanging from his nose. Squill started counting coup on his pink fingers. 'Assault, insubordination, lying…'
'Your inexperience is showing, Captain,' I said, as calmly as I could muster. 'Maybe you should have spent more time at autopsies.'
He wheeled on me. 'What are you babbling about, Ryder?'
I smiled. It wasn't what he expected to see. 'Our little talk by the autopsy table, Captain. About DC Plackett and various other events?
When you were candid. Remember?'
Squill stage-laughed. 'You might want to speak with a professional, Ryder, get some help with those delusions. You'll have the time.'
The cruisers angled in, braking hard. Flashing light spangled our faces. I said, 'Remember how the pro sector talks all the time?'
'What?'
'At the morgue. The person doing the autopsy is always talking.'
I pulled from my pocket the white envelope Ava had given me, tore off the end, puffed it open with a breath. I shook a black cassette tape into my palm.
'Did you think they were talking to you?'
I tossed him the tape and he made a fumbling catch. 'The tape kept running after Burlew's autopsy,' I said. 'All through our little chat.
Good sound quality. Even on the copies.' Doors opened on the cruisers. 'So, Captain, you can either tell everybody how you carved Deputy Chief Plackett from a dung heap or…'
'Or what?' Squill whispered, his face drained of color.
'Or you can tell Harry and me what a great job the PSIT is doing. And to keep doing it.'
Neeland made a croaking sound and threw up. Fried chicken and gravy spattered across Squill's shiny black shoes.
'Rumbling and tumbling,' Harry noted.
'I want you to see something,' Harry said. 'Then we'll talk to a woman who knew Lindy when he was growing up.' Harry passed me an eight-by-ten brown envelope as we ran toward the motel. 'Check this out,' he said quietly. 'Got it from the sheriff's department in Choctaw County. Lindy grew up on a farm up outside Butler.'
I opened the envelope and pulled out a faxed photo.
Ava. In a booking photo from the Choctaw County Sheriff's Department.
Front and profile. Arrest number.
Almost Ava. The nose was a shade too long, the forehead a touch too high, and the eyes seemed like eyes from a taxidermist's inventory, something piscine, or perhaps reptilian.
Harry waited for my shock to subside. 'Lindy's mother. Arrested for child endangerment and related offenses. Kept him chained in a pantry, for one.' Harry sighed. 'Plus other bad things. He was sixteen at the time. She died two years later in prison, cirrhosis.'
I said, 'When Ava walked into the morgue for her job interview '
'Snapped our boy like a nickel pencil.'
Harry knocked on the door of room 116. A dusty Choctaw County Sheriff's Department cruiser sat in front. I nodded my thanks to the deputy behind the wheel.
Harry said, 'The woman is Velene Clay. She's fifty-three.
Youth-services director around Butler. She's with her aunt who lived on the farm next to the Lindys. Not a big town.'
'The aunt know anything?' I asked, wanting to shoulder through the door, yell, scream, get things moving, but if there had ever been a time to soak up impressions and details, it was now.
Harry shook his head. 'She's almost eighty and has Alzheimer's. That's why the motel: Ms. Clay couldn't leave her at home.'
'Find anyone else who knew Lindy way back when?'
'He wasn't out a lot.'
The room was warm, the AC barely breathing. Out of concern for the wire-thin woman in the wheelchair between the twin beds, I supposed.
She had a crocheted shawl hanging from hard-boned shoulders and her white hair was combed but not subdued, strands poking out like frosty antennas. Emotionless blue eyes fixed on the blank television. Her hands moved in short jerks from her lap to her lips, smoking an invisible cigarette.
She turned to me. A flame of recognition of something. 'Ha-aah,' she said. 'Ee-you. P'leasmn.'
Policeman, I thought she said. The left side of her mouth drooped slightly, a stroke probably. I nodded and said hello. She returned to smoking and staring at the television. I had a vision of ancient programs trapped in the starchy sprigs of her hair.
'That's my aunt, Mrs. Benoit. I'm Velene Clay, sir.'
I turned to a portly woman sitting at the table in the corner. She wore a simple yellow dress and had a tattered folder in front of her.
The fingertips of both hands rested on the folder as though it were the planchette from a Oiuja board. Ms. Clay had been youth-services director in Choctaw County for five years and a caseworker before that.
I asked for everything she knew about Will Lindy, looking at my watch to emphasize the need for speed.
She spoke hesitantly. 'I first saw him when he was thirteen. He'd run away from home. Not so unusual. He was brought to me for counseling.
A bright, soft-spoken young man. But the first day I knew something was… very amiss.'
Harry had heard some of her story over the phone. 'Listen to this, Cars,' he said.
