Chapter 5-2
2007 Words
you“It’s—”
“If you say complicated, I’m going to—” He punched the roof once, twice, again and again until he felt something give between two knuckles that hurt more than his impotence. He’d long ago figured out that threats were worse than pure vanity. He couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t leave her behind. Couldn’t hide from, couldn’t ignore, couldn’t quit her. She appeared whenever and wherever and however she cared to, once even in his line of vision as that cute blonde actuary his sister had fixed him up with knelt before him, tugging at his buckle, and that had turned into a particularly spectacular failure to close the deal, to close any deal for the past three—no, four—years.
no, fourShe twisted her fingers into knots. “I can’t—”
“You can.”
“Literally, I can’t—”
“Some higher deity won’t let you? Words don’t exist? I need to learn some magic language or some mythic horseshit? Horsefuckingshit, D.”
“You don’t—”
“You cannot say understand. You do not get to say understand.” He bashed the driver-side door with his elbow. “Not after I spent the past three—dammit, the past four—years understanding this completely not understandable situation.”
fourD started bawling.
Tanner had already inhaled to blast out his next furious barrage.
Her tears stopped him.
Deflated him.
Dammit, again.
Dammit, againHe’d never been able to handle crying women. His mom, his sister, his daughter. His daughter, his Evie, whose tears shattered his retirement fund to buy lawyers that won equally shared custody, every other week. Evie, whose tears wrecked his vacation budget to prolong her cherished cats well past their expiration dates and then wrecked his eating-out budget because she’d counted on his promise that they would spend a week-long vacation touring crowded beaches and theme parks infested with her favorite cartoon characters guiding her to exit through every single damned gift shop on the southern coast.
Tanner never missed a chance to let someone else console the women affected by his victims. Always took a chance to let anyone else deal with them.
Because he couldn’t.
He’d already sent Midtown’s victim advocate after Bridget Mammon’s next of kin, even before he’d sent Britt, his partner, after Bridget Mammon’s boyfriend.
D knows I can’t—
D knows I can’t—“Stop crying,” Tanner said.
“I—”
“Shut up.” He slammed his head back against the rest, rattling the mesh behind the front seats. “There’s no crying when you’re Death.”
Her gulping, raw squalls stopped. “I have never—” Her hiccups didn’t. “Never asked for—asked for—I’ve asked for nothing.”
Tanner couldn’t stop his reflexive bark. “Nothing but to accept you as—as—as whatever you are, showing up whenever you want, making me pretend that you don’t, that you’re not in my head every minute of every case, of my f*****g life—”
“I have to ask you those questions.”
“—of my you-cursed life—”
“I have—I have—to ask you not to solve this case.”
have“You can’t ask that. You—she—Bridget Mammon is someone’s daughter.”
“She’s not.”
“She’s someone’s—”
“She’s no one.”
Tanner froze, clamped down on himself to control his paralyzing fury. He twisted the unyielding wheel until muscle fatigue forced him to release it. “Damn you for saying that.” He squeezed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the tracks glistening on her cheeks. “If anyone should know she’s someone, it’s you.”
D blanched. “I mean, she’s not connected to anyone in your world.”
“Except the guy who killed her.”
D sat silent.
“The boyfriend, and I know you know who he is even if you won’t tell me.”
D shook her head. “It’s not a boyfriend.”
Tanner, cranked up to hurl another charge, sagged when he recognized the misery, the agony in her negation. “You’ve never lied to me before.” That I know of.
That I know of.“I’m not now. I know she’s unconnected to anyone here. I don’t know who in your world killed her. But I know he’s also unconnected to anyone in this—here.”
“Explain how you know that. Maybe then I’ll believe you.”
“I can’t. There are things about your world that I can’t—that you can’t know. Things that would change your world if you knew them.”
“Change how?”
“I’ve said too much already.”
“Change how?”
“It would be—well, bad doesn’t really convey what I mean. More like…atastrophic.”
“Catastrophic?”
“Apocalyptic.”
Tanner punched the dashboard again. “You tell me I can’t solve this case, and then you tell me you can’t explain why because the world will come to an end if you do.”
D sat up straighter, brightened, flashed Tanner a dazzling smile. “So, we’re good.”
“Get out.” Never before had anyone—not even Evie’s mom accusing him of loving the job more than his daughter, more than his wife, more than anything—ever provoked him to anger so white-hot, so all-consuming, that his vision hazed out.
D’s face collapsed from glee to confusion. “I thought you—like, you know—understood.”
“I understand that you’re full of s**t and I have a murder to close.” Tanner activated his squad. “So, get out, or shut up until you’re ready to tell me the truth.” He shifted into reverse.
“I am telling you all the truth I can.” She reached toward him but stopped before her hands crossed the center console, then pulled her arms across her. “All of it.”
His phone buzzed. He shifted to park and put the call from his partner on speaker.
“I finally found that noodle shop the anonymous call came from,” Britt said. “The caller bought a meal and paid with a card.”
“You got the receipt?” Tanner opened his notebook to a clean page.
“Name is Karen Obolus.”
“Karen? Not the boyfriend?”
“Spelled C-H-A-R-O-N.”
D’s hands fluttered to cover her grimace.
“The manager pulled the surveillance video for me,” Britt said. “Pasty guy, 25 to 35, approximately six feet, slender build, black hair with a buzz cut.”
D shimmered out, leaving a scentless fog that quickly suffused his squad’s interior.
“What do we have on Charon Obolus?” Tanner said.
“How do you feel about a business card that says he’s the sales manager at River Boat Works on Acheron Boulevard?”
Tanner stopped writing. “Are you kidding me now?” He searched his spiral-bound gazetteer’s index for an address on another unfamiliar Midtown road.
“Video showed him dropping his card into the fishbowl for a free lunch. It was right on top.”
We don’t catch the smart ones. “Does that seem—”
We don’t catch the smart ones.“Like he’s asking to get caught?”
Tanner shifted into reverse again. “Gaz shows I’m a couple of minutes from that boat store.”
“Wait for the response team,” Britt said before Tanner ended the call.
* * * *
Despite D’s lingering fog, which he couldn’t get rid of even at speed with all the windows down, Tanner found River Boat Works on a dead-end side street.
A tight grid of lamps lit the showroom, so bright that walking under them hurt Tanner’s brain. Starbursts flared from every edge as he weaved through boats to the greeter’s desk.
“I’m an old friend of Charon’s and I was just in the neighborhood. He working today?”
The greeter asked his name, already dialing the extension.
“John, from school.” Tanner rested his hand over his holstered g*n, invisible to the greeter behind the counter.
The greeter hadn’t returned the handset to its cradle before a pasty, slender young guy with buzzed black hair pushed through a swinging door calling, “John, you old hound dog, come on back here and let me get a look at you!” The man named Obolus retreated through the door.
Tanner approached the still-swinging door. He took his phone from his pocket and sent a message to Britt:
obolus wants me in his office
Tanner replaced his phone, drew his g*n, pushed the swinging door but didn’t go through. Caught the door when it swung back to him, held it, crouched, peeked through left and withdrew immediately.
Nothing.
Peeked through right and withdrew immediately.
Nothing.
As he crept into the empty office lobby, he heard Obolus’ boisterous call: “At the end of the hall, Tanner.”
Shit.
Shit.“Ready to talk.”
Tanner flattened himself against the wall and messaged Britt:
setup
obolus knows and expected me
Tanner opened the phone’s recording app, tapped the record button, and dropped the phone mic-up in his chest pocket. He filled his lungs, then breathed out slowly, counting his pulse to slow it. “Britt,” he whispered, “if you hear this, remember to give Evie my letter. There’s one for you, too.”
Then he took another deep breath and shouted, “Charon Obolus.”
“Come on down. And don’t worry—all the cameras are running.”
Tanner glanced up to see that surveillance video covered all angles. A blaze-of-glory crackpot.
A blaze-of-glory crackpot.“I’m not a blaze-of-glory crackpot.”
The chill flushed the adrenaline. Tanner felt the blood drain from his face, felt himself turning white, felt his pulse in his grip on his g*n.
You can’t take this case.
You can’t take this case.“But you can’t not take this case, can you?”
He visualized D’s eyes wide with terror. “Do you—”
“No. But she’ll come when you call her.”
Tanner brought up his g*n. Pushed it as he charged around the corner. The hall a tunnel. The light at the end half-obscured by a beckoning Obolus.
“Have a seat while we wait. She’ll explain everything.”
Tanner rolled forward behind his g*n.
“You want coffee?” Obolus stepped backward, into his office. “Maybe a beer?”
Tanner reached the door to Obolus’ office. Luxurious, gleaming wood and fragrant leather, like a rich man’s country house study.
Obolus took the chair behind the desk, then pointed to the club chairs facing them. “You’re probably gonna want a beer.” He tipped back and put his feet on the desk.
Tanner kept his g*n trained on Obolus’ center mass. “Are you Charon Obolus?”
“In here.”
“I’m arresting you for murdering Bridget Mammon.”
“She’s no one.”
Tanner stomped closer to Obolus.
Obolus didn’t flinch. “My apologies.” Flashed his palms. “She tells me that you take your job very seriously.”
Tanner clenched his jaw. D never stopped telling him that he was the only person in the world who knew she existed.
“That’s true,” Obolus said. “In here—in your world.”
Tanner shook his head to clear Obolus from it. “Who are you?”
“Her husband.”
Tanner staggered, his left knee shuddering, but he kept his g*n on target. Then he realized his g*n was useless, that Obolus must be as untouchable as D, and he dropped it helplessly, uselessly to his side.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Obolus nodded enthusiastically. “Call her.”
- Writer
