“A little Cackalacky?”
“Put some Cackalacky on it!” Al testified, before remembering his charge. “Jessica, this is Bobbie. Bobbie, this is Jessica, our summer intern.”
Introductions aside, Jessica was whisked over to a set of glass walls, looking into a pert and organized office. Al knocked on the door. “This is where I live, Jessica.”
Jessica moved to open it for him.
Al didn’t notice, moved onto the office next to his, and did the honors. “This is heart of the both the Metro and Crime section. Come on in.”
Jessica hustled her way into the office, followed by Al.
A thin, pale man stood hunched over his desk. Phone to his ear. Head shaved clean, one of those jobs meant to hide a receding hairline. Below the gleam of his skull, a pair of outlandishly round eyes nestled in their sockets. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, as though some hostage negotiation had gone seriously south.
“If someone down there spoke to Celia, then I certainly haven’t heard about it,” he insisted, a surprisingly commanding voice for such a skinny cat. “Has the family been informed…? So the wife’s out of town, I imagine you all have his cellphone at this point…” His thin, sloping eyebrows perked up. He reached for a pen, and scribbled something down. “All right, that’s more like it… If you say so… All right, thanks a million Tell that brother of yours I said fuck you.” He laughed, hung up, and turned to face Al. “Seems our victim is a state employee of some prominence. Didn’t get a name yet, but it explains their hesitation to release one.”
“Where’s Celia?” Al asked.
“Better be on her way here.”
“What do we have so far?”
No reply.
“This is Jessica Kincaid.” Al placed a gentle hand on Jessica’s elbow. “Jessica, this is Ethan Prince, head of Metro. And Crime.”
“And managing editor,” Ethan reminded him.
“Unofficial managing editor. Until the day the sky falls and we can actually afford one. Time being, he’s as close to second in command around here as I’ll ever admit.”
Jessica found herself flashing back some six months earlier. “I’m familiar with his work.”
Ethan nodded, unapologetic. “I got a job to do here, same as everyone else.”
“I’m not going to get personal...” Jessica shot Al a reassuring look. “It was news, you reported it.” Unable to help herself, Jessica added: “And wouldn’t stop calling me about it, I might add.”
Ethan shrugged. “It’s what we do when no comment is all we get.”
“And now we move on,” Al concluded. “Ethan, what do we have so far?”
Again, Ethan refused to speak.
Al sighed. “Once more, Jessica, I’m going to have to get real with you, real soon. Anything you hear around here, especially of this caliber, stays right where you heard it. I know we’re not a law firm. There’s no statute saying you can’t clock out and then post this on Facebook, but there’s also nothing that says we can’t fire you for just such an infringement.”
“Noted.”
“Ethan. What do we have?”
Ethan gave Jessica one last, lingering look. “The victim was found by the maid. Cleaning lady, to be more precise. Comes once a week.”
“On a Sunday?”
“Maybe she’s agnostic. Couldn’t get a name. Still no timeline. All we know is that the lady found him in his bedroom, tied to a chair. Bound real tight; legs, arms and all…” Ethan took a moment. “Still no word on why none of the neighbors heard any screams.”
“Any word on how they did it?”
“All I got is what everyone else does… Tied to a chair, eyes gouged out. Tongue severed. Head left hanging, guess how he didn’t choke on his own blood.”
Jessica felt that early morning coffee churning unpleasantly.
Loud enough for the two men to hear.
Al cleared his throat. “Any word on whether or not an injury like that could result in death?”
“Got someone checking it out… on an interesting side note, did you know that eye-gouging has its own entry on Wikipedia?”
“I did not, Ethan. Thank you.”
The door swung open.
A compact, curvy woman burst in. Chest heaving, freckled face alight. Her hands poked out from the sleeves of a purple, wool knit sweater, defying seasonal fashion. She held up a piece of paper, took a few more breaths and proclaimed. “Jason Castle.”
Al frowned. “I know that name, don’t I?”
“Yeah, rings a bell,” Ethan agreed.
“Ethan’s guy down at the station’s telling us this guy’s a state official,” Al told her.
Somewhere in Jessica’s databanks, a connection was made. As always, she was never sure from where; traces of an article involving research and development of pharmaceuticals, one of Verona’s top industries. She scanned the details, highlighted a single sentence and opened her eyes. Unaware that they had ever been closed.
“Jason Castle is the deputy secretary of Health and Human Services for North Carolina.”
Everyone turned to rest their eyes on Jessica.
“Who’s this?” Celia asked.
“Jessica Kincaid, our intern,” Al said, barreling past exposition. “Ethan. Jason Castle. Is this for real?”
Ethan pounced on his computer. “Odds of more than one Jason Castle currently serving the state?”
Four clicks later, he swiveled his screen towards the rest.
Ordinarily, Jessica would have taken the time to revel in her quick thinking. A little more at ease in a room full of professionals, each one beaten to the punch by a rising senior from the wrong side of the tracks.
Instead, she felt her stomach do another jig as she finally got a look at the victim, Ann Taylor turning tight as a strait jacket.
“I know that guy,” Jessica managed, throat clenching.
“Undersecretary of Health and Human Services,” Al agreed, giving her a pat on the back. “Good catch.”
“No…” Jessica insisted, unable to deny the ugly combination of shock and dark satisfaction crawling over her skin. “I mean I waited on that guy. At Spiro’s. Not more than twelve hours ago.”
As the rest of them turned to each other, Jessica remained with her eyes trained on the face of Jason Castle.
Pixilated eyes staring right back at her.
Mr. Table Thirteen.
PART TWO
June 9
Chapter 5: Two Days Later.
Jessica awoke to a sundial floor hinting half past ten in the morning.
Shot up, pillow cradled in her arms, panicked that she was late for first shift at Spiro’s. Seconds later, the past two days came into focus along with a shaky sigh. She fast-forwarded past her initiation into local journalism; questions concerning Mr. Table Thirteen, the crash course in getting statements on the record, the scramble to beat officials to the next phase of investigation. She gladly sidestepped recollections of local news, the muddied, uninformed reporting on Jason Castle’s condition, coupled with the same B-roll of his home in Forrest Hills.
Jessica’s heartbeat slowed, as the roller coaster came to a halt.
She was officially unemployed.
When Dinah had arrived for her Monday shift, Guy had taken her aside and issued a warning that Jessica was being let go. Too much attitude, no real commitment to the team.
Jessica’s proposition to kill Mr. Table Thirteen had apparently not helped her case.
So Dinah walked out.
Fire Jessica, fire me, was the short and sweet on Dinah’s subsequent walk-out.
The unrated directors cut, to have Dinah tell it, was a tirade ten miles long, twice as loud, and a thesaurus of unrelenting expletives.
So the frightening reality of being out of work during one of the worst recessions in recent history was tempered with the relief that she wasn’t late after all. The edges of her room softened. All objects breathing a little easier. The faint melod
ies of hungry robins snuck in through the windows along with a light gust of wind.
Jessica felt her head droop, contemplating another hour of shut-eye.
Then came the jarring, hollow thud of a speeding truck hitting a pothole, accompanied by a searing flash against the back of Jessica’s brain: Jason Castle, bound to a chair, eyes gouged out. Purple tears leaving a dirty trail down his cheeks, mingling with blood from his severed tongue.
Jessica struggled to submerge the grizzly image beneath more immediate thoughts.
“And what do I have to do today?” she asked aloud.
Casually.
Overcompensating.
Jessica threw on a pair of shorts, sports bra, and a black, oversized shirt from her days at Ben and Jerry’s.
Slipped into her worn cross-trainers and hit the streets.
It was a good fifteen-minute run to the three-mile, wooded trail that encircled Verona’s most prestigious hotel and golf course, the Prescott-Pantheon.
Jessica took to the sweeping curves and steep hills, double time. Breath steady, eyes focused straight ahead as though trying to outrun the projection of Jason Castle’s ruined face. All the while wondering where that vision had originated. No crime-scene photographs had been released. Castle’s hospital room was under round-the-clock protection. Authorities playing all specifics close to their chest. The written statement issued by the Verona PD had done little more than reiterate what few details were already known. There hadn’t even been an official press conference. Tight lid, nothing to see here, and even still, the image of Jason Castle –
Her path opened onto the parking lot of the Prescott-Pantheon.
Jessica took five, tried a few stretches.
Her darker thoughts were clearly in training, catching up faster than she expected. Another glimpse into the tunneled eyes of Jason Castle got her running again, cutting through Pantheon’s West Campus.
The final sprint along University Road seemed to do the trick.
She slowed to a trot, mentally highlighting another item on her to-do list.
The Camelot Apartment complex was a rare gem in the rapidly expanding city of Verona. Built in the early thirties, the hundred-yard complex of sturdy, redbrick apartments had yet to be touched by gentrification. Straddling a thin divide between the outskirts of East Campus and the shores of lower-income neighborhoods, there was little to offer aging boomers or wealthy hipsters. Rental rates were effectively held hostage, making it one of the last remaining places of its kind to accommodate such a wide range of tenants. Nurses, waiters, bartenders, retailers. Low-level Pantheon employees, freelance IT geeks, librarians, graduate students all mingled with eccentric mainstays who had made Camelot their home for decades.
Jessica skirted the buildings along a cobbled pathway. The sharp scent of dried soil rested on her tongue as she trotted from building to building. The manager’s office was located on the first floor of Building I, converted from a two-bedroom unit.
Front door, always open.
Angela Lansing had already exceeded her caffeine quota for the day; coffeepot refilling as she swiveled in her black, foam-padded chair. Her long raven hair sported bangs cut just short of elliptical eyes colored an unidentified shade of green. Sturdy fingers systematically perusing her cluttered workplace. Palms hovering an inch above folders, invoices, and work orders in a bureaucratic séance.
“I’m going to guess your job ain’t gotten any easier since the last time I saw you,” Jessica said.
“Ugh…” Angela rolled her eyes, voice pinched. “I swear, the company won’t give me anything I ask for. Right after the damn housing crash, everyone was saying that rentals were going to come back. Back to the days of six-month waitlists, that’s what they said. They said, then, you’ll get all you need… And I’ll tell you what, Jessica, every month since then, even with construction at an all-time low, guess what ain’t been happening?”
“More rentals?”
“Even still!” Angela squawked, rolling her eyes once more. “A quarter of these rooms are empty, and as a result, guess what I can’t get?”
“Anything you need?”
“They won’t give me anything I need…”
Angela’s mystique vanished as she continued to vent, exasperation gluing her words together.
Jessica took a seat. Angela could talk a therapist six feet under, but if that was the worst a landlord had to offer, then in Jessica’s experience, all was right with the world. The clock on the wall made fast work of the next five minutes, as Jessica searched for a way in.
“…And I don’t know what the owners are up to. It’s not just resources, I can hardly get any information out of them –”
“Angela, I hate to be a jerk –”
“I know, I’m sorry…” Angela laughed through thick, smiling lips. She made the blah-blah motion with her thumb and fingers. “I know.”
“Just a little pressed for time.”
“Aren’t you a little late for first shift?”
“Heading to the Observer after lunch.”
“Oh, that’s right!” Eyes wide, she leaned over and whispered, “Do you know anything the rest of us don’t about the eye-gouger?”
“I only know what I read in the papers.”
“Oh, of course sweetheart…” Angela sat back and smacked her forehead. “Duh. What can I do you for?”
“You ever drop off the copy of our lease renewal?”
“Oh, shit…” Angela got her chair rolling, yanked open a file cabinet and put her fingers to work. “I’m sorry. It’s all falling apart, and the company won’t give me any help –”
“It’s all right. Things are bad all over.”
Angela handed over the forms.
Jessica folded them into fourths, tucked them away.
Waited, unsure why Angela wasn’t seizing on this rare blip in conversation.
“I’m real glad you’re staying with us another year,” Angela said. Tired enough to take her time. “You and Dinah are two of my favorites around here.”
“Don’t tell anybody I just had an emotion, but… Agreed. It’s good to finally have a real home.”
Angela put a hand to her gypsy bosom. She opened her mouth to add something. Possibly a whole series of somethings, cut short by a knock at the door.
“Good morning,” she called out, eyebrows furrowing.
“Good morning,” came the reply, delivered in an overly formal tenor. Before Jessica could turn to catch the source, she heard the speaker add: “I’m Detective Captain Donahue with the Verona Police Department. This is Detective Sargent Randal. Are you the building manager?”
Jessica turned in her chair, too late to decipher which one of them was which.
They were both wearing suits. Neither tailored to match the other in color, but close enough in style to give the impression of unspoken teamwork. One of them was a broad man, somewhere in the neighborhood of forty-five years old. He stood at around five-eleven, a Latino-Anglo cross promotion. Dark hair trimmed so close, there was no telling the texture. His gaze was both alert and soft, large brown eyes with room for both.
His partner came in at about five-ten. One of those bodies that gave away nothing beneath the suit. Could have been a bundle of sticks, or ripped as a UFC contender. His hair was sandy brown, professionally cut, sticking up with just enough product to put him some five to seven years below his partner. His blue eyes and pale, pouty lips implied reserved naiveté, begging to be underestimated. But there was no covering the quiet contours of his thoughtful expression, offhandedly taking in every detail.
“Yes, I’m Angela Lansing…” She unconsciously straightened her hair, leaned back. “How can I help you?”
“We’ve got a bit of a mix up with an apartment number,” the older one ventured, now clearly Detective Donahue. “Hoping you could help us locate one of your tenants.”
And as Jessica flashed back to her manufactured memory of Jason Castle, she had to ask herself
if maybe she hadn’t been expecting this all along.
“Jessica Kincaid,” Donahue specified. “Know where we can find her?”
Jessica sighed and raised her arm.
“Yo,” she proclaimed, unable to take any satisfaction in the surprise painted across the faces of what appeared to be two otherwise unflappable detectives.
Chapter 6: Angry Jonny.
Truth be told, Jessica was relieved.
She led the detectives up the stairs to her apartment, happy to accept their continuous apologies for bothering her at home. Never doubting the many years they must have spent refining their act.
Both of them had their own roundabout way of presenting themselves.
Detective Donahue, while clearly a racial hybrid, offered no indication of being affected by culture or ethnicity. Even his accent refused to tilt in any predisposed direction. His vowels and consonants were neither Northern or Southern; he was second-generation anything. Speech patterns that were either politely reserved or tacitly suspicious. His sentences defied punctuation, mixing periods, ellipses and question marks.
Detective Randal kept stride with his counterpart in every way. Undoubtedly a man of manners, though his mannerisms were no easy fit. His cheeks betrayed a flush that would have passed for embarrassment, anger, even panic if there had been some context to him. As it was, he spoke with the same routine ambiguity as his partner.
The landing outside her apartment was suffused with the stale reek of weed, courtesy of neighbors for whom stuffing a towel beneath their front door was simply too great a task. Jessica half expected the detectives to make a detour. Start knocking on doors, searching for the source.
Neither one seemed to care.
Jessica slipped the key into the lock.
She turned to face them. Eyes fluttered to the green folder tucked under Randal’s arm. “Just so you know, gentlemen, I don’t plan on being a headache. But I am very well versed in my rights. So come on in, please, but if I catch either of you two snooping around…”
“Noted,” Randal agreed.
“Though bear in mind,” Donahue added, either playful, or serious, or both… “All the technicalities in the world can’t stop us from gleaning.”
“Plain view doctrine and all that jazz?”