Evangelina, Page 3

  "More than enough for someone of your skills and instincts. We'll have your piece back quick."

  "Quickly. And thank you for those words of reassurance. I remain undaunted as I know the department shall quickly process all paperwork and give my weapon back in a quick seventy-two months."

  "Get a life. Take it from me: it's possible to be single and not be such a dork." She grinned, patted him on the neck, and left him alone to work.

  CHAPTER 4

  "Hey, new kid."

  Lue found a smile from somewhere as he passed the desk sergeant, a grizzled veteran of the streets who looked all of twenty-four.

  He supposed the "new kid" moniker would stick for at least a year. Should have come in through Booking. Also should have gone through the academy earlier . . . or grown a full beard to look older.

  He dodged and weaved, carrying a cup of steaming green tea and holding a bag of trail mix in his teeth, nodding to the cops he knew and the administrative assistants he didn't--anyone with half a brain made nice with the men and women who could, with a phone call or an inconvenient sick day, delay paychecks, benefits paperwork, processing of expense reports, and meal vouchers.

  It was almost like a dance . . . dip, weave, open door for the intern du jour. Glide, wave, nod, dip. I should have been a ballet dancer . . . perhaps if this town does not work out. The thought made him grin.

  "I know exactly what to say to wipe that off your face."

  Chief Smiling Bear had stepped out of her office and directly in his way. Her expression was sociable but worried.

  "I don't doubt it," he replied, peering over her shoulder at his desk, twenty feet distant. It might as well have been a mile. "It's one of your super powers."

  "BCA here to talk to you."

  "Why?" he asked, trying not to sound as appalled as he felt.

  "Like I know? Go detect."

  And whatever it is, he thought, stomping past her as she gave way, all his earlier grace forgotten, it's got her anxious. Phenomenal.

  The first thing he saw about the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension guy, unfortunately, was not even really part of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension guy. The first thing was the smart phone. The guy's thumbs were wiggling furiously with the speed and dexterity of a ten-year-old gaming veteran hopped up on Mountain Dew.

  Lue watched this for a while, torn between bemused and fuming. Smart phones were the bane of proper communication: all contractions and abbreviations and LOLs and uninvited @'s. No one who loved the spoken Hmong dialects, no one who loved written or oral English, no one who loved any language worth spit, could tolerate one of these. Lue's phone remained stubbornly dumb--or perhaps it was a smart phone after all, and Lue had never bothered to use anything other than the talking part. Whatever.

  He waited another few seconds before clearing his throat. "You're from the BCA, then?" he asked, perfectly neutral.

  The man looked up, and in a flash the device was gone. "Lieutenant?"

  Lue was suddenly impressed, even though the man had only said one word. Part of it was the pocketing of the phone, to be sure. But most of it was the BCA agent's demeanor. His features were almost a Gaelic stereotype: reddish brown curly hair, dark blue eyes, pale freckled skin that probably burned and peeled and burned again in the summer, and the stocky, broad-shouldered build of a farmer used to repairing his own equipment. And carrying his own cows.

  He looked comfortably rumpled in jeans, a white button-down oxford, and a dark brown blazer. His jaw bloomed with reddish stubble.

  He looked solid. He looked real.

  I should probably talk now. "Yes."

  "Lue Vue?"

  "Yes."

  Lue waited for the inevitable. It would go something like this: Is that your real name? Your real name is Lue Vue? Really? It is? Because that's one of the weirdest names I've ever heard. Ever! What is it, Chinese? You look Chinese. What did you say--Hmong? What's Hmong? Is that part of China? Because you look . . .

  "Morning," the mysterious hulk said. His voice parted the air, and Lue was certain the windows shook from the proud baritone. The guy could've done radio ads. Except radio guys usually weren't so terse. "Morning." Was it a greeting, or a noun?

  He waited for the name play, and blinked when it didn't come. "Can I help you, then?"

  "Yes."

  Again, Lue waited. He dropped the bag of trail mix on his desk, walked around the mysterious hulk that was the BCA guy, carefully set his tea down on the desk blotter (he took unlimited bull from the other officers for the blotter; apparently they went out with line dancing), and took a seat. His visitor's eyes never left him. There was neither hostility nor friendliness there. "What can I do for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension?"

  " 'Ask not.' "

  "What?"

  "Kennedy, John F."

  "Ah, I see. Well then, you've got it backward." Lue checked under the cup to see if it was blotting the blotter. It wasn't. "JFK would want me to ask what I can do for . . . "

  "I know. Irony." The BCA agent's hand went back briefly to his pocket, as though he was just remembering to hang up on a call. "I can help you."

  "Well, that is super." Lue could see the chief out of the corner of his eye, doing her this-is-a-brisk-walk-to-somewhere-I-need-to-be-which-happens-to-take-me-near- your-desk routine. "How exactly, Officer?"

  "Lieutenant."

  "How exactly, Lieutenant?"

  "McMahon."

  "How exactly, Lieutenant McMahon?"

  "Lieutenant Art McMahon."

  "Is there any more to your name, Lieutenant Art McMahon? Perhaps we can get it all out there right now, because I do not have all day."

  Art's arm shot out. It looked almost like a blow (what kind of cop throws a punch in the middle of the Cop Shop?), until Lue realized the guy was offering a handshake. He shook, noting the callused palm and firm grip. A man unafraid to use his hands, then. And that voice. Wow.

  "We can help."

  "You and who else?" Lue asked.

  "You and I. We can help."

  "Whom?"

  "Each other."

  "Super." Lue didn't know whether to feel irritated at the piecemeal sentences or admire the way this man demanded full attention to every sparse word. It was like the man was dropping ten dollar gold coins instead of nouns and verbs.

  "I'm from Bemidji," Art said, eyeing Lue's trail mix with ill-concealed disdain. "Why the grain?"

  "They were out of hops." Lue reached for the bag, took a deliberately large handful, and tossed it all down his gullet. "Mmmm . . . I can feel myself getting healthier and more sexually potent by the nanosecond."

  Art blinked slowly, like a lizard.

  Lue thought about that.

  "So," he finally prompted. "The BCA office in Bemidji is interested in all this? Why?"

  "Weird murders there."

  Lue froze, his tea halfway to his lips, his trail mix stuck halfway down his throat. He coughed, forced it down, then took a big gulp of tea, coughed again, and managed, "What a coincidence. We've had a weird murder, too."

  "Yesterday." It was an order: tell me about it.

  Lue smiled. "I am sure you have already downloaded my report."

  "You have a report available?"

  "I take pride in filing reports within hours, for all fracases." Or would that be fraci?

  Closing his eyes, Art seemed to take in the scent of Lue's healthy snack. "Better to hear from you."

  He saw the chief accidentally wander by again with an impatient glare.

  "It might help to know first: what are you facing in Bemidji?"

  "Something similar."

  Lue pressed his tongue against his cheek in irritation. "Next time, friendly hint, before you rush on down here, take a minute to shower and change your clothes. Then try a phone call. You will save time."

  He heard a telltale crumple and observed with no surprise that Art had grabbed a bag of teriyaki beef jerky from his blazer pocket. "Nnngg?" he grunted with a telltale nod tow
ard, and wiggle of, the bag, which Lue translated as, Would you like to partake of a portion of my refreshing snack?

  "Taciturn, yet generous. No, I do not want some. If I have to watch you eat that at eight o'clock, I will need more than tea."

  "And grains," Art added, standing.

  "Was that a joke? What a beautiful friendship this is blossoming into."

  "No joke."

  "What was I thinking?" Lue saw the man was a good three inches shorter, and maybe fifteen pounds heavier . . . all muscle. Fortunately, Lue was comfortable with his masculinity, and wasn't threatened by a short, muscular, taciturn, barely communicative fellow upholder of the law.

  Art put the bag away. "We'll eat somewhere."

  "Sure, eventually. Oh. You meant us. Right now." Lue sighed. "Chief Smiling Bear will want to know how well the two of us are getting along. I also want to drop by the morgue, which somehow seems appropriate given the progress this conversation is making . . . and then Saint George's facility. We can get a skillet of something, somewhere in there."

  "Okay." The jerky bag crumpled as it was crammed into a jacket pocket.

  "You can come with me to see the chief, of course. Let me do the talking. Heh."

  "Yes."

  "It was a joke."

  "Yes."

  Despite himself, Lue laughed.

  Then he abruptly cut off the sound and studied the man. It was true, this conversation had involved very little open give and take.

  And it was also true that some people could make you like them. It was a knack, like being able to raise one eyebrow.

  He decided Art could be one of those. The man had said very little (to put it mildly), but Lue could not deny his charisma or presence.

  "Come on," he said. "A bit to eat sounds good right now. It will give Meenay at the morgue a bit more time, anyway."

  CHAPTER 5

  If he had been blindfolded and led to the morgue, Lue would have known where he was at once. It wasn't chilly (unless the AC was malfunctioning, as happened occasionally), and it wasn't too hot. The place didn't stink of rotting corpses, as some assumed. And it didn't smell like a hospital, as others assumed.

  It smelled like burnt coffee.

  "Disgusting," Lue commented, peeking into the coffeepot and trying to keep his breakfast down. "Who's the victim this time? Brazilian Roast? Columbian Supremo? Organic Rainforest Blend?"

  "Not answering," Dr. Meenay muttered, crouched over one of her microscopes. "Tox isn't back yet. Go away. Get some breakfast."

  "We just had some," Lue protested. "I had an egg white omelet, while my new partner from the BCA here had an inordinate amount of bacon. We skipped the coffee. And we wish you had done the same."

  Art wrinkled his nose. "This is bad."

  "You have no idea," Lue said. "She's a maniac about her coffee. Buys the gourmet junk, uses bottled water instead of city water. So the waste is simply astronomical."

  "You don't want to know what's in the city 'water,' " the doc replied, still entranced by whatever the microscope was showing her.

  "Grinds the beans fresh, keeps 'em in the freezer the rest of the time. Then she keeps the pot on so hot and so long, the coffee is the taste and consistency of motor oil. And at least as expensive."

  "Is not. Go away. Had breakfast? Try lunch."

  "Hazelnut Creme!" Lue said triumphantly, spotting the telltale evidence in the garbage can below the coffeepot. "Oh, poor Hazelnut Creme. We barely knew you. Dr. Meenay, this is Lieutenant McMahon. McMahon, this is Meenay."

  "Mee-nay," Art echoed, feigning social politeness and nodding. Lue noticed that the man knew better than to offer his hand to someone so absorbed. Uses few words. Reads body language well. Probably a good interrogator.

  "Tox isn't back, chem tests aren't back," she mumbled. "Nothing for you yet."

  "You should date her," Lue said, jerking a thumb at the doc. "You two have the same love of language."

  "No."

  "Why haven't you gone away?" Dr. Meenay genuinely seemed surprised to see them still in her morgue. "Go away. Nothing's ready."

  "Well, jeez, what have you been doing all damn morning?" Lue wasn't especially upset. He knew if Dr. Meenay hadn't finished the autopsy, he was sure there was an excellent reason. "Were you catching up on reality television?"

  "I loathe reality TV. An oxymoron."

  "Fascinating. So what have you been doing?"

  "Farm accident."

  "Oh." That was not an oxymoron. While farm accidents were hardly a daily occurrence, as people from big cities assumed, they still happened. When they did, they never happened small.

  "Tractor hit a combine."

  "Oh."

  "Which then crashed through the south wall of the barn."

  "Huh."

  "Igniting the--"

  "You know what? I no longer want to know." When farm accidents did happen, they tended to ramp up the gruesome. "Listen, do you have anything at all for us? A hunch? A theory? A cup of coffee that does not taste like hot liquid death?"

  "He's very dead," Dr. Meenay proclaimed.

  "We should return later," Art announced.

  Yes, Lue thought, the two of them really would make a great couple. They were both striking (Meenay, with her dancer's legs, spiky red hair, pale green eyes, and bowshaped mouth, could have been a swimsuit model) with bad dietary habits and a clear dislike for conversation. A match made in heaven! If "heaven" were another word for "this morgue."

  "Homicide," Meenay continued. She picked up a cup off the counter and took a long slurp. Lue watched carefully to be sure she--yes! She was! She chewed her coffee. That's how evil and hideous her hot beverages were.

  "So the county's best coroner has determined that our guy a) is dead, and b) was a victim of homicide. Brilliant! Taxpayers, you are welcome."

  "When will you be done?" Luckily, Art had the focus of a laser. And perhaps the personality of one.

  "Four hours," the hot, creepy pathologist replied. Lue checked his watch, noting how long this conversation had lasted without eye contact between any two of them.

  "Four hours." Art turned on his heel and headed for the door. "Saint George's. Then the crime scene."

  "What a wonderful suggestion, Lieutenant McMahon. Yes, by all means, let us conduct some research on the victim's most recent employer, also known as Saint George's Medical Facility, and then revisit the crime scene while Dr. Meenay finishes the autopsy. Then we will be able to . . . what? The conversation's already over? Aw.w.w.w."

  He had to trot to catch up. For a man almost half a head shorter, Art could move when he wanted. For a minute, Lue thought of his ex-wife, how she could always--

  Now that is something to think about.

  Or maybe not.

  He let it go. It was a weird day in the middle of an odd week and he was tired and stressed.

  He put his ex-wife out of his mind, and ran to catch up with the strange BCA agent.

  Fourteen Years Ago

  Run, run, as fast you can . . .

  . . . you can't catch me, I'm a monster!

  Evangelina stared down past her two dangling legs, through the twilit grain hatch.

  After that fateful day two years ago, she had never been foolish enough to dive in . . . even though she was pretty sure she could always fly out, now. She hadn't come here to swim in corn. She had come here to reflect.

  Even as the sky darkened, she could make out the distance to the granular mass below. When she squinted, she could see herself still down there, wriggling in the kernels, kicking dust over her aunt Susan, looking back up at Niffer.

  Thinking what she had been thinking.

  "Vange, you up there?"

  She almost fell in, she was so surprised. Bending back and glancing downward over the edge of the silo, she saw Aunt Susan stepping out of her old blue Ford Mustang, which looked like it had hit 100,000 ten years ago but still ran . . . well, actually, it ran like crap. How had she not heard that car?

  "I thought
I'd find you here," Susan continued, her voice raised high enough to reach the hatch. "Your mom's worried about you. I know, again. But Jenn's worried too, and no one knew where to look for you."

  "I'm okay."

  "I can see that. Barely. It's getting dark. Why don't you come down? Your mom has dogs on the grill."

  Evangelina sighed, pulled her legs out of the hatch, closed it, and began climbing down. It took a while to climb all the way down.

  "Why didn't you fly?" Susan gave her a bemused look. "It would have been quicker."

  The girl shrugged.

  "C'mere, give me a hug. Gah, that one sucked. Try again. Aaaphh! Better. Vange, tell me what's wrong."

  "Billy Brandfire called me a monster today."

  "Billy Brandfire? Has he looked in a mirror?"

  Evangelina pushed away from the hug, rejecting the joke. "It's true! I'm a monster. Or I'm nothing."

  Susan's piercing blue eyes narrowed as she put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Do you really see yourself that way? I thought you were smarter than that."

  "Well, I'm not!" Evangelina's cheeks and neck warmed. "I'm stupid, and I'm ugly, and I scare people."

  "You're brilliant and beautiful."

  "But I still scare people."

  Susan bit her lip in a mixture of laugh and surprise. "Cripes, kid, you don't miss a thing, do you? Yes, you scare people. Some people."

  "Like Billy Brandfire."

  "Like Billy Brandfire."

  "And Niffer."

  Susan paused. "And Niffer."

  "And Mom."

  "That I wouldn't know, kid. I don't know if anyone's seen your mom like that--"

  "You're not afraid of me."

  Susan turned and pulled Evangelina by the hand toward the car, which was parked as always on a slant, like the owner was in a hurry to have fun and couldn't be bothered to look for painted lines. "No, I'm not."

  "Why not?"

  "Because no matter how fierce you look, I'm always going to remember how beautiful your rainbow eyes are."

  "Do you like me when I look fierce?"

  Susan opened the passenger door and spanked Evangelina as the girl climbed in. "Of course I do." She shut the door, but of course it was a convertible, so she could still hear her. "I love you when you look fierce. And I love you when you don't."