“You’re handling yourself pretty well, Jessica. Given the situation.”
“Given the situation.” Jessica opened the door and led them to the living room table. “Just so long as you don’t think I ain’t taking this seriously.”
“I’m glad you are.” Donahue moved to the chair across from her. “Looks like you know why we’re here.”
“I can guess.” Jessica made room for Randal, who reached for the seat to her right. “Before we get to it, can I get you anything? Coffee, water…?” She paused. “Actually, that’s it. Coffee or water.”
“Not going to offer us any spirits?” Donahue asked, pointing towards the far wall, where an antique Singer sewing machine doubled as Dinah’s liquor cabinet. Not much of a spread; bottle of tequila, bottle of Kentucky Gentleman, Jack Daniel’s. A few mini bottles of Skyy vodka, untouched. Beneath sat the multidisc stereo. Speakers wired on either side of the Singer.
“Those aren’t mine.”
“I’m fine,” Donahue said.
“Water’s good.”
“Well,” Jessica motioned with her head. “Follow me.”
She led them down the hall, unwilling to leave the detectives alone for even a minute. Showed them into the kitchen, maneuvered her way across the linoleum, reaching up to a set of cabinets above the electric stove. She pulled down a glass and a ceramic mug. Poured Randal a glass of water, fresh from the Britta pitcher. The coffeepot was already full, as was the custom. First to rise, first to brew.
She filled it to the rim, took a sip.
“Coffee drinker, huh?” Donahue asked.
“For the record, detective, could you please note that I didn’t take this opportunity to be a smart ass?”
“Smart ass?”
“You saw me drinking coffee.”
“Yes.”
“And then asked me if I’m a coffee drinker.”
Donahue nodded. “To which you could have easily said, wow, you really are a detective.”
“Yes.”
“Or, whatever they’re paying you, it ain’t enough.”
“Also good.”
“My report will include that you prefer an extremely roundabout way of being a smart ass.”
“Good.”
“You’re a coffee drinker, huh?”
Jessica took another sip as she led them back to the living room. “Far as drugs go, it’s my only vice.”
“Not the most standard thing for a teenager to say,” Donahue observed.
“Well, considering the kind you must come across…” Jessica went to the window and unplugged the Christmas lights. Turned on the overhead fan and sat down. “Being a detective and all. How firm is your grasp on what qualifies as a common teenager?”
The two detectives joined her at the table.
Donahue leaning back, one arm slung behind the chair. Legs crossed.
Randal leaning in. Hands clasped politely over his folder like a wining poker hand.
“You make a fair enough point,” Donahue said. “But in this case, I think you know what I mean.”
Jessica took a sip of her coffee, watched as Randal mirrored her with his water.
Donahue motioned with his head. “I notice there’s an ashtray over on the windowsill.”
“Feel free.”
“Don’t smoke.”
“Me neither,” Randal echoed.
“No vices other than coffee,” Donahue asked.
Jessica smiled sweetly. “My aunt’s got enough for both of us.”
“Doesn’t bother you?”
“I’m not one of those.”
“Not one of those what…?” Donahue asked, pointing in the general direction of his argument. “My two guesses would have to be you’re either a live and let live straightedge, or a recovering substance abuser with the guts to resist while others indulge. We’ve established the coffee debate. So I’ve got to assume my first guess ain’t the one.”
“Then again,” Jessica countered. “Could be I am simply not… sanctimonious.”
“Is that it, though?”
She took another hit of coffee.
Once again, Randal matched her movements, swallows and all.
“You’re second guess is the appropriate one,” Jessica said.
“Recovering…?”
“Alcoholic.” The very word brought back vivid memories of her lost years. A smeared watercolor of desperation, fear, and the bleak whimper of self-annihilation. “I did any number of things when I was younger. It’s your turn to be a smart ass now, if you like. When I was younger. I know, I’m seventeen. But, yeah. I don’t mind telling it. I did drugs – weed, coke, ex. Smoked like a fish. But above all else, I drank. That was my number one. I’ve been clean for three years, but you never forget your first.” Jessica motioned towards Dinah’s minibar. “So, no, I don’t care that others may need a little something to make it through the day. That’s what I mean when I say I’m not one of those…”
Donahue cleared his throat. “Got it.”
“Any particular reason we just did this?”
“I was showing off.” Donahue didn’t hesitate with the reveal. All business, all at once. “You’ve been excessively glib with us so far. Which is fine. You’ve also been polite, accommodating, which is most certainly fine. I don’t believe this indicates any sinister motive. But just in case it does, I wanted to make it clear that we know what we’re doing. Randal and myself are not at all bad at our job. And we thought you should know that.”
Jessica was waiting for Donahue to cap his speech with an abrupt shift in gear: Now start talking, kid, tell us everything. Instead, he remained quiet. Randal followed his lead, allowing the fan to do circles. Motor clicking, kicking up thin clouds of dust.
“Anything else I should know about me?” Jessica asked.
“You live with your aunt,” Randal piped up. Jessica was waiting for him to flip his folder open, reveal a complete dossier. Didn’t happen, and the detective continued to preach to the choir. “Dinah Titus, your mother’s younger sister. You lived with your mother, Kendra Kincaid, in Louisville, Kentucky. A missing person’s report was filed on her back in May of 2006. According to the Louisville PD, she was a nurse at a VA clinic. Left work one night. Never came home.”
“No.” Jessica took another sip of coffee. “She never did.”
This time, Randal didn’t join her. “Shortly after that, you were arrested on an aggravated assault charge. Bumped down to public affray on the condition that your aunt take full custody of you. June of that year, she did. You were enrolled in Brookside High… A little strange, considering that’s not technically your district.”
“Not that we plan on telling anyone,” Donahue said. “I wouldn’t want my kids going to Washington High, either. But you have given Brookside a different address, and we’re going to have to ask whose it is…”
“Carlton Walsh.”
“Any relation?”
“My Aunt’s boyfriend from maybe three years ago. Works at a lab on Pantheon’s East Campus.”
“We will be checking up on that. OK?”
“OK.”
“And so…”
“And so,” Randal picked up. “Straight A-student. Keep to yourself, mostly. October of 2008, you filed a sexual harassment complaint against Glen Roberts, the health and biology teacher at your school. A pillar of the community. One of those independently wealthy kinds who don’t have to dedicate their time teaching public school, but do it anyway. He was eventually fired. Wife left him. Took the kids. He shot himself in the head.”
“I’ve had myself quite a year,” Jessica agreed, indifferent to how glib Donahue would take it. “Also, you left out a little something.”
The detectives gave her room to continue.
“My pops cut out on mom and me when I was only two. Another parent gone MIA… Just saying, you might want to add that to your profile, there.”
“Actually, we don’t do psych profiles,” Donahue said. “
We’ve got an independently contracted forensic physiologist for that sort of thing.”
“So I guess that makes us all caught up…” Jessica reached for her mug, looking for a little something to wash down the bitter aftertaste of her life thus far.
“There is something else that Randal didn’t mention, Jessica. You currently work as a waitress at Spiro’s, over on Main.”
“Good Calamari,” Randal said.
“That’s what I hear, Randal.”
Jessica waved. “Bring it on in, detective.”
“Clearly. You were among one of the last people to see Jason Castle before he was assaulted.”
About time, Jessica thought, even as she realized her cup was empty.
“So, a few questions?” Donahue asked.
“Yes, please. Go ahead.”
“You don’t want to grab another cup of coffee?”
“Depends. How much longer is this going to take?”
“Not long,” Randal assured. “We’ve got somewhere to be soon.”
“Then go right ahead. Do it, to it.”
“We talked to one of the shift managers…” Donahue began, moving forward in his seat. Assuming Randal’s position, even as Randal slipped into a less intrusive pose. “According to Guy –”
“Gee,” Jessica corrected, sounding out the proper pronunciation.
“Gee, right, sorry… According to him, you had a bit of an unpleasant encounter with Mr. Castle.”
“He was an unpleasant person.”
“Seems a little harsh there, Jessica.”
“They say you should never speak ill of the dead. Jason Castle is alive, so the rules don’t really apply –”
“Man had his eyes cut out. His tongue severed.”
“Yes. Sorry…” Jessica took a breath. “It’s just that when the two of you deal with evil characters, at least you have authority over them, OK? Waiters, waitresses, we don’t… we’re like puppets, basically. We don’t get to wave a badge, all swagger, and demand that people treat us with proper respect.”
Donahue frowned, possibly the first time Jessica had seen his lips go sour. “I don’t think you want to go there, Miss. I really don’t think you want to compare some jackass at table thirteen to a man who just beat his wife to death with a wrench.”
Jessica didn’t. “I’m sorry.”
“Not a problem. I think I get what you mean.”
“And I think we can gather your feelings towards Mr. Castle,” Randal added. “So again, moving on… You know we’re going to have to ask you about what happened at closing time.”
“I folded a hundred napkins, scooped out used candles, did my close out, tip out –”
Donahue appeared to respect the irony and filled in the blanks. “You, your aunt, and a couple of stragglers at the bar got into a bit of a… thought experiment, sounds like. How to best exact revenge on the likes of Mr. Castle… You know – the ruling class.”
She closed her eyes, sighed with visible regret. “Yeah, I might have said –”
“We just want to verify what Guy told us you said.”
“Which was…?”
“He said that you said…” Randal paused, as though taking out an imaginary notepad. “He said you said, I would just kill him. Kill him and not get caught.”
“Did you say that?” Donahue asked.
From somewhere outside, another ice cream truck sailed past Camelot Apartments like a windup toy, followed by the excited cry of coalescing children.
“Yes,” Jessica admitted. “One or two words off, but who cares, right?”
“Well.” Randal clapped his hands together, shifted in his seat. “That’s all we need to know about that… Now, about these two gentlemen seated at the bar. An African-American male, middle aged, by the name of Chaucer Braswell?”
“Yes.”
“And a Caucasian male, somewhere in his late twenties?”
“Yes.”
“Paid cash. You remember his name?”
“Eli.”
“Eli got a last name?”
For some reason, Jessica felt no urge to help them out on that front. Kept Messner to herself. The detectives didn’t seem to mind the denial, asked her to recall whatever she could about Eli and Chaucer’s end of the conversation.
“Did Eli mention what he was doing in town?”
“Wasn’t aware he was any more or less in town than anyone else.”
“Guy mentioned that Dinah mentioned that he was carrying a Florida license…” Randal said. “Dinah kept referring to him as Mr. Sunshine State.”
“He didn’t mention what he was doing in town.”
“Never seen him before?”
“No…” She reached for her coffee, remembered it was empty. “Mind if help myself to another cup?”
There were no objections.
***
Jessica returned to find the detectives just as she had left them.
Seated at the table like a pair of trained dogs.
Jessica plopped down in her chair, took a sip. “Neither of you have asked me about the man Mr. Castle was having dinner with.”
Donahue smiled. “Your grammar notwithstanding…”
“Of course.”
“Chris McDonald…” Randal said. “Works for Generation Pharmaceuticals. His alibi checks out.”
“And mine?”
“We don’t know your alibi yet.”
“I was asleep.”
“Careful,” Donahue advised. “Makes it sound as though you know when the assault took place.”
“When did it take place?”
“What did you do after you left Spiro’s?”
“Dinah and I came back here. She had a few glasses of wine. A few cigarettes. She went to bed at around one-thirty in the morning.”
Randal took a look around. “And you can verify the time, how?”
“Laptop. Time’s right there in the lower right hand corner.”
“May I show you something?” Randal asked.
“Sure.”
Randal flipped his folder open, just long enough to remove two photographs. Shuffled them as though trying to decide which one he liked best. Slid a single glossy over towards Jessica.
“Does this mean anything to you?” Randal asked.
Jessica wasn’t sure what she was seeing. It took a few seconds to figure that Randal had presented the photograph upside down. She corrected this mistake and found herself accosted by two vibrant words, red splatters against a hard surface…
Jessica contained a looming shudder. Glanced up. “What am I looking at?”
“What do you see?” Donahue asked.
“I see the words Angry Jonny.” Jessica took a closer look. What she had first assumed to be blood took on a different texture. “Looks like spray paint. Can’t tell how big the letters are, there’s nothing else to give a sense of scale. My guess is whoever did this ain’t an experienced hand. See how some of the lines begin with a slightly larger splotch? It’s as though they pressed down on the nozzle and waited for the paint to show up on the surface before moving down, or up, or across.”
“Well…” Donahue coughed. “Would have settled for, I see the words Angry Jonny, but… not bad.”
“I knew a few taggers back in Louisville. ”
“Does what you see mean anything to you?” Randal asked.
“The image or the actual words?”
“Does what you see mean anything to you?” he repeated.
“It’s a song. The artist’s name is Poe. It’s off her 1995 album entitled Hello. She spelled Jonny with an H, though, so don’t know if that means anything to you.”
Donahue leaned back, crossed his arms. “How old were you in 1995?”
“Three. Possibly four.”
“Mm.”
“May I ask…?” Jessica ventured, eyeballing the second photo in Randal’s hands.
“You may.”
“Am I a suspect?”
“Witness. Of
sorts.”
“So all this?”
“Let’s say this is just an exercise in getting to know you.”
“Getting to know all about me?”
“Ah…” Donahue pointed across the table. “The King and I. Am I right?”
“Never seen it. Just know it’s a Rogers and Hammerstein song. ”
“Doesn’t make it any less of an obscure for a teenager.”
“Again with the teenager bit.”
“Long as we’re being honest, you seem to be operating way above your pay grade.”
“I do happen to have a best friend who is eighteen years older than me, and it does expose me to certain songs, movies, bits of trivia that others aren’t privy to… River Phoenix, to name a one.”
Donahue smiled. “Who’s your friend?”
“That would be my aunt. Also my roommate. Also, I’ve pretty much already lived my teenage years to death. Nowadays, I’m stuck paying rent, saving up for college, and generally overcorrecting for all past mistakes. I don’t have time to keep up with team Edward versus team Jacob, or where Lindsay Lohan is throwing up this week…” Jessica held up their photograph. “You want this back, detective?”
“On to the next slide…” Randal reached over and traded photographs.
This time around, Jessica had no idea. She rotated the photograph a hundred and eighty degrees, then back. Tried for one more change in perspective, then gave up.
Randal reached over, gave the picture one last, corrective turn.
“Thanks,” Jessica said. She glanced back down, sensing she had just passed a key test. Faced once more with the same spray paint scars, lines taking on the form of a nameless symbol.
Jessica shook her head. “I don’t know what this is…”
Apparently, ignorance was the shortest distance between two points of questioning. Randal promptly took the second picture, shuffled it with the first, then slid them both into his folder.
“We don’t know either,” Donahue admitted, now very much at ease. “That character was spray painted on the wall where the victim was found, just below the words Angry Jonny. We haven’t gotten anything back on the brand of spray paint used, and so far –”
Donahue paused.
Randal was quick to take over: “We’re aware that you were chosen as the winner of Observing the Observer, which technically makes you a member of the press. Didn’t think it was worth bringing up.”
“Though we do have to wonder how the paper managed to catch where Jason Castle took his last meal before we did,” Donahue smirked.
“Yeah, I’m afraid I can’t reveal our sources,” Jessica said.