What I did pick up,was Annika. And O’Connor wasn’t her husband’s name. She wasn’t married.
Look, I can see you shaking your head again. I do not understand this thing with women.Maybe this is another of those places where I’m telling lies, making myselflook good while confusing the trail.
As far as I cantell, I’m the opposite of a sex symbol. But Annika made it plain, leaving Ernie’s,that she expected to share the cab back to Cash’s apartment with me. That Cashhad told her in so many words to go ahead and use that bed if she felt soinclined. It had been built to take the strain. And the next morning, oversausage and pancakes and coffee, she allowed as how she felt the night had beenwell spent. I agreed. We’re still seeing each other on a non-exclusive basis.
That was my autumn and winter, atmosphere proper to the fadinglight and long cold dark. I’ve tracked some things. I’ve gathered connections.I’m patient. This case won’t come together in some blinding flash ofinspiration and one vital clue that ties everything together, setting a noosearound the villains’ necks. Real police work doesn’t turn out that neat andtidy.
But spring comes, every year. No matter how bad the winter,spring always comes. Rains replace the snow, the ground thaws and passesthrough mud to smell of soil again, buds swell on the trees, early wildflowerspoke up in the forest and dot the green grass of the fields. The cast came offand I could ditch first the crutches and then the cane. I had some chores Ineeded to do, memories that had been sitting in opposite corners of myrepainted living room.
Sandy, and then Cash.
I took Sandy’s old Mercedes for a run it should know well, outto the nature center. They’d know the car, even if they didn’t know me — theywouldn’t think anything of seeing it sit for hours in the parking lot. I spreadher ashes there, along a forest trail above a small stream, and spent most of aday sitting and thinking, trying to come up with a way I could have made thingsall better. Cash had been right.
Cash, well, Cash needed a different setting. I’d never havethought of it, but Annika knew. They’d talked about things that Cash never hadtold me.
A lot of things I never knew about Nef Cash, it turned out. Weclimbed into the Mercedes again, Annika holding the urn in her lap like a baby.I drove. I’d known Cash came from a bad neighborhood, but I never knew how bad until that drive to ThomasJefferson High School. Hey, I’m a cop, a wizard, in a locked car with a 9mmauto tucked under my armpit, and I started to feel nervous.
We finally reached the school, an old two-story brick fortressthat looked like it had been built in the 1920s and had never seen a dollarafter that, but was still in use. We turned in. A uniformed cop stood on eitherside of the driveway, black man and woman, and I twitched a bit because what weplanned to do was technically illegal, but they just came to attention andsaluted us like they’d been expecting the car.
I glanced across at Annika. She shook her head.
“Just keep driving. Damned street network, it’s faster thanradio. I asked one person, when wouldbe a time we wouldn’t be disturbed. Oneperson. Nef used to run these streets, training. I think everybody knew her.”
I’d figured we might have to sneak in, even climb a fence.Instead, the gate stood open to the field out back, probably access for mowersand trucks and such, usually locked, and we drove straight in. We stopped. Theyhad an old-fashioned quarter-mile oval track around a football field, wooden bleachers,the typical high school phys-ed site.
A dusty black cinder track, an athletic antique.
I hadn’t known any of those still existed, in our modern worldof synthetic rubber tracks and lawsuits. Judging by the cleat marks, runnersstill used it every day. Cash had shown me the scars and impromptu runner’stattoos on her knees, her elbows, dark spots on her palms where she carriedchunks of the old track under her skin from falls.
Now we were bringing those chunks back, part of her ashes.
We parked. We walked onto the track. I stared around andchoked up — every fifty feet around the chain-link fence of the field, a man orwoman stood. Silent, parade rest, facing outwards to give us privacy. Otherrunners, I guessed, a guard of honor.
Damned if I know what cultural thing said we could turn theirtrack into a graveyard. A lot of people get serious shivers from knowing theywalked over old bones. I’m just telling what I saw. Maybe they thought Cash’sghost would bless their runs. Or maybe having a place to run would placate hershade.
A slow walk, silent, we spread her ashes, pinch by pinch,around the full quarter mile and then again until she was gone, thinking aboutthe elegant long-legged gazelle who had learned to run on this track. I lookedup once and saw a guard talking to a woman in a track suit. She nodded andjoined him, facing out.
We finished. We walked back to the car. I sat there for aminute, two, silent, not able to drive until my eyes quit blurring. Annika didn’ttalk, either. Then we drove out, past the same cops. They saluted us. Just for being her friends.
~~~
Like I said before, I have some complicated reasons fortelling this story. I’ve told more than a few lies here, tangled up the cluesand changed names and places and dates and mixed several cases together inorder to protect the innocent. And to protect my own guilty ass, as you’veseen, because I’m certainly no saint. I do what needs to be done, and face theconsequences.
Some readers may recognize the heart of the story anyway. I’m notworried about the colonel, and
