Jack Kerley - A Garden of Vipers

“I’m getting too old for this, Ryder.”

“You’re forty-three. And in better shape than most people ten years younger.”

“Don’t try charm, Ryder,” she said. “Unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

I was perhaps her only colleague this side of God who used Clair’s first name. Not knowing of her insistence on formality, I’d used it when we were introduced. Those with us had grimaced in anticipation of a scorching correction, but for some reason, she’d let it stand, addressing me solely by my last name as a countermeasure.

When I’d first met Clair, I’d considered her five years older than her actual age, the result of a stern visage and a husband in his sixties. I would later come to realize the latter bore a certain responsibility for the former, Clair’s visage softening appreciably after hubby was sent a-packing.

Two years ago, a murder investigation had cut directly through the center of Clair’s personal life. The revelations of the investigation had wounded her, and I’d been present at a moment of her vulnerability, a time she’d needed to talk. We’d stood beneath an arbor of roses in her garden and Clair had revealed pieces of her past-less to me than to herself-suddenly grasping meaning from the shadows of long-gone events.

They were startling revelations, and though I disavowed the notion, she had believed me the vehicle for the transformative moment.

“When will the preliminary be ready?” I asked, pulling my jacket from a hanger on the wall.

“In the a.m. And don’t expect it before ten-thirty.”

Though our relationship was professional, there had been times-as in her garden-when the world shifted and for fleeting moments we seemed able to look into one another with a strange form of clarity. A believer in reincarnation might have suspected we’d touched in a former life, spinning some thread that even time and distance left unsevered.

“I’ll be here tomorrow at ten thirty-one, Clair.”

She walked away, talking over her shoulder.

“How about sending Harry? Be nice to see someone with some sense for a change.”

Though at times the thread seemed tenuous.

I was climbing into the Crown Victoria when my cell phone rang, Harry on the other end. “Hembree wants to see us at the lab. How about you whip by and grab me. I’ll be out front.”

We blew into Forensics fifteen minutes later. Hembree leaned against a lab table outside his office. He was so skinny, the lab coat hung in white folds like a wizard’s robe.

He said, “You got great eyes, Harry.”

Harry winked. “Thanks, Bree. You got a nice ass. Wanna grab a drink after work?”

Hembree frowned. “I meant catching the water depth on the floorboards. I called the regional office of the National Weather Service, talked to the head meteorologist. They archive Dopplers. He reran the night’s readings, checking time, location, and storm cell activity.”

“Upshot?” Harry asked.

“The area where the vic’s vehicle sat took pretty light rain, overall. Lightest in the city, at least in the hour before it was spotted. About an inch in the hour before the vehicle was found.”

“Why so much in the car, Bree? It was a lake.”

“Maybe a leak along the roof guttering caught rain, channeled it inside. I’ll check it out.”

“Anything else turn up?”

Hembree said, “The knife Shuttles pulled off the street? Made years ago by the Braxton Knife Company in Denver. The handle’s bone. The blade’s carbon steel, not stainless, why it looks corroded. It’s a damn nice knife.”

“How about prints? Anything new?”

“Pulled a thumb, forefinger, and middle finger, some palm. Ran every possible database. Nada. Nothing. Zip.”

“You got a Wookiee database?” Harry said.

“What?”

We waved it off and walked out the door.

Harry and I spent the rest of the day wandering the industrial neighborhood where Taneesha Franklin had died. Normally, the area was a cruising ground for hookers, but rain was still keeping them inside. We corralled as many denizens as possible, asking about the bearded longhair. The killing had frightened most of the girls, guys, and question marks that hawked wares from the corners. They tried to be helpful, but we ended the day with a zero, heading home at six.

Home, to me, was thirty miles south, to Dauphin Island. It’s an expensive community, but when my mother passed away, I inherited enough to buy a house outright. It was actually my second home on the island, the first turned to kindling by Hurricane Katrina. I never complain about paying insurance premiums anymore.

I pulled onto my short street and saw a silver Audi in my drive, Danielle Danbury’s car, the bumper festooned with bird-watching and wildlife stickers. I parked beneath my house, climbed the stairs, and stepped inside.

Dani yelled, “I’m heading out to the deck. Join me.” The deck doors slid closed with a thump. I stood in the living room, hearing only the soft hiss of the air conditioner. Normally Dani would have met me at the door.

What was up?

I paused to yank off my tie, toss it over a chair, follow it with my jacket. The shoulder holster and weapon went to my bedside table.

I heard the deck door slide open. “Where you at, Carson?”

“Changing.”

“Get it in gear, pogobo.”

Pogobo — and its diminutive, pogie — came from po lice go — lden bo — y, coined by Dani after Harry and I were made Officers of the Year by the mayor. Most of the time we were homicide detectives, but once in a great while we were the Psychopathological and Sociopathological Investigative Team. PSIT, or Piss-it, as everyone called it, started as a public relations gimmick a few years back, never intended to be activated. But somehow it was, somehow it worked, and somehow it bought us Officers of the Year commendations. The honor turned out to be, as Harry had promised, worth less than mud.

I slipped into cutoffs, T-shirt, and running shoes a half mile short of disintegrating. At the kitchen sink I slapped cool water over my face and glanced out the window. Dani paced beside the deck table; on it something was hidden beneath my kitchen towel. I dried my face on an oven mitt and went to the deck.

The waning day remained beautiful and springlike, enhanced by a salt tang breezing up from the strand. Gulls followed a school of baitfish in the small breakers, keening and diving. Several pleasure boats bounced across the Gulf, including a big white Bertram I’d seen a lot lately. High above, a single-engine plane banked at the far edge of the sky, so small it looked like a lost kite.

Dani stood beside the towel-shrouded tabletop in white shorts and red tank top. Sunlight shimmered from her ash-blond hair, her big gray eyes made blue by the bright sky. I raised my eyebrows at the table.

“A magic show? You’re going to make a rabbit appear?”

She snapped off the towel. Centering the table was a bottle of pricey champagne iced down in a plastic salad bowl, flanked by my two champagne flutes, $1.49 apiece at Big Lots.

Dani thumbed the cork from the bottle and froth raced out behind it. She filled the glasses, handed one to me.

“We’re drinking to my elevation from reporter to”-she lifted her glass in toast-“a full-fledged anchor.”

I stared like she was speaking in tongues. “What?”

“They’re making me an anchor, Carson. I start this week.”

“This is out of the blue.”

I saw the edge of a frown. “Not really. I’ve felt it coming for a few weeks, caught hints. Heard a few feelers.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s June, Carson. When was the last time we had a real conversation? Early April?”