Spore Page 11

  “I’d definitely label the kid as the most important,” Sean said, seething, “but I’m a citizen too. I pay taxes. I vote. Don’t all citizens deserve service and protection?”

  “Of course they do,” Hendrix said as he walked to the door. “If any of those costumed folks threatens you with a real weapon or one of your telephone friends says they’re actually coming to hurt you, give us a call. Until then, try to stay off the news.”

  “Thanks for taking me with you,” Mindy said, looking over her shoulder toward Pinell as Sean turned his wheezy, rusted out Chevy onto the highway. She’d planned to do more online research about Jeff, but, real weapons or not, the protesters worried her.

  “Let’s just hope we get in and out before my mother comes home from work,” Sean said. “I don’t suppose you know anything about light switches or loose door hinges?”

  “My dad fixed that stuff, but never taught me. And Jeff…” She shrugged and swallowed the bitter lump in her throat. “He always called a repair person. Said that kind of thing was beneath him. We didn’t even own a screwdriver or hammer.”

  Sean glanced at her but said nothing.

  “Jeff was an ass. I get it, I do, all right?” Mindy muttered.

  “I don’t know if you really do,” Sean said as they stopped at a four-way. “Maybe I’m wrong, but you don’t seem like the kind of person who’d be swayed simply by money. How’d you end up with someone like him, anyway?”

  “College,” Mindy said, shrugging. “We met at a party. He was in a frat, and I was a dumb, naive freshman who got caught up in the drinking and a cute, popular guy paying all kinds of attention to me.” She felt shame flare on her cheeks and she chewed her lip before admitting, “I felt so special, and he was so sweet, telling me how amazing I was. Before I knew it, I was drunk, naked…” She flinched and looked away. “Only I got pregnant.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s the bed I made, right? After he, we…” She took a breath and let it out. “He promised to call, after the party. Of course he didn’t. When I missed my period and got the pregnancy test back, I found him and told him. He tried to deny it, to get out of it, but he was the only guy I’d been with. There wasn’t any doubt, at least to me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged off Sean’s concern. Back then she was eighteen, broke, and barely into her first semester at college. Her father had been livid. Ashamed. He’d left her no choice, marry the guy or take her shame and never come back. And Jeff… He’d become sweet again once he learned the baby was his. Said he wanted the baby. Said he loved her. She didn’t trust the nice Jeff, but what else could she do?

  “Even though I’d figured out by then he was a jerk, my dad was Catholic and insisted I marry him. His folks insisted on a paternity test first. So they stuck a needle in me and, not long after, we got married. The baby died about a month before she was due. That was… Awful.” She shrugged, not wanting to relive those details. “It kinda went downhill from there.”

  Sean glanced at her, frowning. “How could it not? You married your rapist. I thought they only made women do that shit in third world countries.”

  “That’s not what happened. Just because I didn’t mean to—“

  “I know exactly what happened. A guy got a girl he just met drunk and coerced her to have sex with him. Last I heard, that’s rape.”

  “I was pregnant,” Mindy said, hating the bitter taste of it in her mouth. “My parents insisted. What was I supposed to do?”

  “File charges? Sue for child support? Cut his balls off?”

  Mindy fidgeted, her eyes downcast. “Those weren’t options.”

  Sean remained quiet for a mile or so. At last he said, “You definitely deserve better than him or your dad. A lot better.”

  She thought of Sean and Mare’s playfulness, their passing caresses, their comfortable silences. “How about you and Mare? How’d you two end up so happy?”

  “A lot of luck, I think.” Sean smiled. “We met in college, too. In class, not a party. We became friends, started dating, and never looked back. We just…mesh,” he said. “She’s happy with me how I am, and I’m happy with her how she is. All in all, it’s been pretty great. We have our grumpy moments, especially when money’s impossibly tight, but mostly we’re really good together.”

  “But no kids?”

  “Want ‘em, can’t have ‘em,” Sean said, shrugging. “It’s a medical thing.”

  She’d wanted another baby but Jeff had said trapping him once was bad enough. Mindy stared at her hands, still clasped between her thighs. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. It’s been a tough hurdle for us. We can’t afford to adopt, so we tried fostering a little boy. He was four when he came to us, and we had him almost a full year. God, we loved that kid. They told us he was messed up, a neglected drug baby, but we thought he was simply awesome.”

  Sean sighed and turned onto a residential street. “When they sent him back to his birth mother, it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt. Mare bawled for weeks. Was awful to be so helpless, so hurt, loving a kid we couldn’t have. Everyone thought it’d tear us apart, but facing the grief together made us stronger, I think. We decided we didn’t want to endure that pain again, so it’s just us, no kids. But that’s okay. We’re happy.”

  Mindy nodded, wishing she could offer some comfort. Then she blinked and raised her head. “Am I staying in his room?”

  “Yeah.” Sean pulled into a driveway beside an immaculate bungalow and turned off the car. “It’s actually kind of nice to have someone in there again.”

  “What was his name?”

  Sean opened the car door. “Jamaal. But don’t tell Mare I told you. Every time she hears his name, she starts crying.”

  As Mindy exited the car, a tidy, graying-haired woman hurried down the steps, beaming and oblivious to Sean’s exasperated sigh. She wore a sleek teal blouse and tailored khakis, but cheap, scuffed loafers. Maybe she’s been gardening? Mindy thought. Jeff would have sent her back into the house for stepping outside without proper footwear. And here I am in second-hand flip flops. He’d surely bust a gasket over that.

  “I see you got my message!” the woman said as Sean ducked into the back seat for the toolbox.

  “Yeah, Ma.” Sean slammed the car door. “Same light switch?”

  “And the bathroom door hinge,” she said, beaming at Mindy. “I’m Helene, Sean’s mother. Aren’t you a pretty little thing. Has Sean finally come to his senses and chosen a nicer girlfriend?”

  “Uh, um… No?” Mindy said, confused.

  Sean stomped past with the toolbox. “Still with Mare, Ma. Mindy’s just a friend of ours.”

  “Why can’t you pick someone who’ll take better care of you?”

  Sean stopped, shoulders sagging, before he turned. “We’ve been through this. Like it or not, I love Mare and she’s not going anywhere. Mindy’s split from her husband and needs a place to stay so she’s in Jam’s old room. Do you have a problem with that, too?”

  Embarrassed, Mindy took a step backwards, her spine against the car, as Helene ran an appraising eye over her. “She’s cute. You should keep her and ditch the other one.”

  Sean continued into the house. “Not gonna happen, Ma.”

  “A mother can hope,” Helene sighed before following. She stopped at the foot of the steps and motioned Mindy to her. “Come on now. We can look through my scrapbook while he works.”

  Oh, yay, Mindy thought, meekly following. Maybe I should have stayed with the zombie gang.

  “I don’t give a shit how pissed off drivers get,” Todd said, looming over the relief deputy as a semi sped past without slowing. “Divert traffic to the next road south. Now.”

  They all had been working nearly non-stop since the fungaloids had erupted the morning before and, between various panics, the
fts, a murder, and a kidnapping, the department had been forced to rely on functional idiots to fill low priority positions. Only this functional idiot had become the first responder to a totally fucked-up scene: a child’s body found nude and mangled in a ditch along highway E26 south of Fraser. After less than four hours of sleep since the previous morning, Todd had long since run out of bullshit tolerance and this guy had picked a bad day to fuck up.

  Ignoring the queasy-sick twist in his gut, Todd couldn’t stop thinking, It could be Hailey down there. Thank God it isn’t.

  The relief deputy glared back. “It’s my crime scene, my—“

  “Yeah, a crime scene you walked and puked all over before the investigator got here. Have any idea how much trouble that makes for DCI? For us?”

  A kid lay in the ditch, not a measly stolen apple. Todd ground his teeth to keep from screaming. “You’re not certified for crime scene investigation, so you can either divert the fucking traffic so professionals who know how to do their jobs won’t get run over by rubber-necking motorists, or you can hand me your resignation right goddamn now and go the fuck home.” Todd took a breath and loomed closer to the much smaller man. “Pick one and get out of the way.”

  He didn’t wait for a response before taking a few steps up the breakdown gravel and descending into the ditch. Brad Jorst, county investigator, was kneeling on the cornfield side of the remains, taking pictures.

  Brad’s face was drawn and exhausted. After collecting cemetery and creek bed samples all day yesterday, plus two dead bodies in the last twelve hours, he’d had an impossible couple of days, too.

  “What do you need me to do?” Todd asked, sticking to the beaten-grass path Brad had broken to the body. He struggled not to flinch. It’s a kid, just a poor, defenseless kid.

  “Rewind the whole damn planet to day before yesterday.” Brad yawned as he took a photograph of the boy’s open and emptied belly. “And remove us of idiot newbies, while you’re at it.”

  “I wish.” Todd remained outside the circle of police tape Brad had set up. The less footprints and stray hairs left behind, the better.

  The boy that had once been Justin Lansing lay nude on his side in the weedy ditch, his skinny-kid body bruised and his feet gone. Wind ruffled his ginger-red hair and his eyes, once blue but now a milky gray, stared at Brad’s knee and the relief deputy’s pile of puke congealing beside it.

  Brad’s path down was simple, straightforward, a clear but non-damaging trek through the abundant vegetation. Idiot newbie’s tracks, however, peppered the whole scene and mangled the nearby weeds. There was no way to tell what fiber or trace evidence might have been lost under his clumsy feet. At least it was muddy enough to cast and disregard his excess prints, but they never should have happened in the first place.

  Brad shifted and nudged aside a sprig of goldenrod to take another photograph. “Backup coming?”

  “Supposed to be,” Todd said, scowling as the relief deputy paced along the edge of the road, obviously following neither of the instructions demanded of him. Sirens blared from far, far away, their urgent wail fading and strengthening in the wind.

  A lime green Honda full of gawking college kids pulled up behind Todd’s SUV. Two got out and started down the ditch. The idiot in uniform did nothing but pace.

  “Fuck,” Todd muttered, rushing back up. “Get your asses back in the vehicle now,” he barked, stopping the kids in their tracks. “This is a crime scene. You’re contaminating it. One more step and I’m hauling the lot of you to jail.”

  They stopped, muttering at each other, while Todd continued his climb. Idiot newbie stopped his pacing only to stand there slack jawed and worthless.

  “Fuck this shit,” Todd muttered. He reached the road and pushed past idiot newbie to the jittery college kids. “In the car and on your way or you’re going to jail,” he said. “We’ll call your parents for you.”

  One kid glared, defiant, but the rest retreated to the car. “C’mon, Kyle,” a tall blond kid said. “We saw it. Let’s go.”

  “Got your badge number, asshole,” Kyle said. “Next I’ll have your job.” Then he turned and stomped to the car.

  Take it, it’s yours. See how well you like all the fucking paperwork, let alone dragging a dead kid from a muddy ditch or peeling a woman out of an alley. Todd watched the car pull away, then he strode over to the idiot newbie, who stood rigid and snarling by the SUV like a chained dog defending his territory.

  Todd thundered past again, reaching out to pluck the badge from idiot newbie’s chest. “Forget the resignation,” he said. “You’re fired.”

  Sean kept a homeowner how-to manual in the tool box and he consulted the dog-eared page about basic wiring before shining a penlight into the electrical box and poking about with one finger. “Ground looks good, and the white’s snug in the nut. Black wire’s tight in the top terminal,” he muttered, “but the bottom…”

  The terminal screw’s missing. And it’s been vacuumed out: no cobwebs, no dust, not even the scrap of wire insulation I left in there on purpose last time. You really are cleaning outlets and switches. Goddammit.

  Muttering, he set down the light and rummaged through the tool box for a screwdriver and a screw. “Mom!”

  “Yes, sweetie?” She appeared at his elbow with a glass of cola and a ham sandwich, cold and stuffed with lettuce and onion instead of her customary grilled ham and cheese. Over the usual scent of disinfectant cleansers filling the house, he caught a faint waft of smoke as she approached.

  “How did you lose a screw inside the switch?” He sniffed. Definitely smoke, but from where?

  “I… I don’t know,” she said, beaming as she held out her offerings. “You’ve been working so hard and Rosemary’s obviously not feeding you right. Why don’t you take a break?”

  Are you kidding? I want to finish this and get the hell out of here before you start in on Mare again, he thought, but said, “I just got here and I ate before I left the house.”

  He found a packet of screws and an appropriate screwdriver. Kneeling before the switch with a flashlight in his mouth, he muttered around it, “If you want me to come over, ask. Don’t sabotage your electrical as an excuse, okay?” Screw started, he slipped the loose wire beneath and tightened. “And don’t clean in here, either. You could get electrocuted or cause a fire.”

  Shit. The wiring. He sniffed the switch, wondering if that’s where the smoky scent was coming from. Nope. Smelled like wires, lumber, and air-freshener. Only his mother would have lily-scented wiring.

  “Oh, I didn’t clean anything,” she said. “But it is nice of you to come help me.”

  Uh huh. That’s why the switch boxes in my house are dusty and yours are sparkling and perfumed. “Yeah, well, screws don’t fall out on their own. Is something burning in the kitchen? I keep smelling smoke.”

  “Oh, that’s probably me!” she said, blushing. “Last night’s storm knocked down some branches. Decided to burn them.” She nudged his arm and leaned close. “Your new young lady is really sweet. Quiet. Very respectful. I think she’s a keeper.”

  Goddammit. He gave her a sideways glare then looked away. “Mare’s a keeper, and if you weren’t so nasty to her, maybe we’d both come over more often.”

  “Not only is Rosemary’s greatest ambition to wipe asses for a living, she’s crude, mouthy, and unwilling to listen to reason. Have you talked to that girl?” Helene said, nodding toward the dining room. “She’s the sweetest—“

  Fuck. Sean spat out the flashlight and caught it in his hand. “That’s enough, Ma. Okay? I love Mare and she’s not going anywhere. So drop it.”

  Helene scowled at the floor but said nothing as Sean reattached the switch plate.

  As he slapped his tools into the toolbox, she said, “I saw you on the news last night. I wish you weren’t talking about such horrid things, though. Dead people! I don’t know why
Rosemary encourages such nonsense, after all the time and money we spent on your therapy.”

  “Don’t blame her,” he snapped. “I’m the one who found them. I’m the one trying to convince the press it’s all real.”

  “Of course, dear. Whatever you say, but a mother knows better. You’re a good boy and didn’t come up with such creepy ideas on your own.”

  Sean clenched his teeth and let out an aggravated growl. Yeah. And I illustrate horror because it’s joyful fun.

  “You looked very handsome on TV, but a little sloppy. I can give you a proper haircut, since Rosemary is oblivious.”

  She’s not oblivious, we’re just broke, and you know it. “Goddammit, Ma,” he said aloud as he snatched up the toolbox and marched toward the bathroom, trying not to cough at the oppressive stink of bleach. “I am so sick of this shit.”

  “It’s an older house,” she said, trotting to keep up. “It occasionally needs repairs.”

  “It’s not the fucking house,” he muttered, flinging the toolbox beside his feet. He wiped a crusty, brownish smear off the doorknob before he tried to close the bathroom door. It bound up immediately and, as he squinted at the hinge, he saw the top plate hanging loose from the door, missing both screws.

  He sighed. Always with the damned screws. Are they removed on purpose or do you vacuum them up when you’re on one of your cleaning sprees? Surely you’d have to loosen them first.

  “If you don’t want ham, just say so. I might have some chicken salad in the fridge or—“

  “I told you, I don’t want a sandwich,” he muttered, rooting through for a hammer and pry bar. “I want you to stop taking screws out of things, okay?” It took a couple of taps to pop out the top hinge pin and he stuffed it into his pocket. “Stop breaking hinges and ruining plugs, drawer pulls, or switches. Please. But even more than that, I want you to stop badgering me about Mare. It’s getting old, Ma, and it’s pissing me off.”