“Whatta you mean?” Lucas said, surprised and pulling back the hand that he had gingerly extended to touch Marcianna’s head and neck as she took to smelling his pants and shoes. “You said she acts like a dog, that she’s safe!”
“I never said she was safe. Though ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s true. But there’s still a bit of wildness in her, and it can shock you…” And then I lifted the tail of my shirt, revealing four parallel, nice-sized scars in my side.
“Holy fuck,” Lucas gasped. “She did that—to you?”
“It was early in our relationship, and it was my fault,” I explained, tucking my shirt back in. “I had just fed her, and was leaving the enclosure. She began getting agitated, and I thought she was being playful—but something else, or something more, was happening. Maybe she’d been spooked, or maybe she’d had a flashback to her time in that shithole petting zoo. Maybe she’d just never played with a human before. But when I reached the gate, wham!—She let me have it.” Marcianna turned to me, a genuinely apologetic look on her face. “Didn’t you, beast?”
“But—” Lucas was at a loss; Marcianna was beginning to show him playful affection, and he wasn’t sure what to do. “But me and Derek looked it up online, after we were here the other day—cheetahs make good pets, a lot of people say.”
“First of all, there’s no such word as ‘cheetahs.’ The plural is the same as the singular: ‘cheetah.’ Second—a lot of people say a lot of things. Especially online, and most of it’s bullshit. Just don’t get too cute with her, yet, if I’m not around.”
“Yeah—don’t sweat that. Geez.” He looked down to speak to Marcianna. “A lot more complicated than you seem, hunh, cat?”
“That she is—and I don’t want to ever stamp that part of her out. Not completely—in case someone or something that’s genuinely dangerous ever comes around. She needs a little of the savage in her. Now—you didn’t come here just to discuss her, I hope.”
“Hunh?” Lucas noised. “Oh, yeah, my assignment. Well, I ain’t got much for you—it’s the weekend, remember? No school. But I got feelers out, don’t worry, there will be results. No, it’s my sister I came to talk to you about.” He was beginning to get steadily more friendly with Marcianna, despite my warning; in addition, she had smelled something on Lucas that interested her. “Hey,” he said bravely. “Hey, Doc, does she actually like me, or am I about to die?”
“Do you have a cat at home?” I asked.
“What?” he said, making a few spirited attempts to shove back when Marcianna bumped up against him. “Oh, yeah—Ambyr, it’s her cat. I do play with him a lot, though.”
“There you go,” I said. “She likes people with cats; likes the scent.”
“Uh—yeah, I guess she does,” Lucas cracked, as Marcianna got between his legs and, with a strong heave, lifted him a few inches off the ground and sent him tumbling. “Hey!” he called with a laugh. “Ow, shit, that hurt, Marcianna—” In another instant she was on top of him, happy to have so small a human, smaller than any she had ever touched in her adulthood, to make into her own plaything. Pulling at the windbreaker he was wearing, she maneuvered him about the grass as a housecat would a victim mouse.
“Okay, okay,” I decided at length. “Come on, miss…” I pulled Marcianna off of her victim by her collar. “Let Lucas up, he’s not quite ready for the full treatment.”
The kid stood, wiping at his back with his sleeve. “Man—that was an experience nobody will ever believe. Except Ambyr, she will—and speaking of Ambyr, Doc…”
“Yes, I’d like to hear what’s on your sister’s mind. Although I’ll bet I can guess.” Having spotted a group of three crows that had foolishly thought to land in and strut about the middle of the enclosure, I looked down at Marcianna. “Go on,” I said. “Go chase a crow, you malingerer.” I gave her a little whistle, and she ran like an utter exhibitionist after the birds. I called after her to say that I was leaving, but would return soon; and then Lucas and I started toward the gate.
The kid took on a more serious tone: “So I heard—about what happened Friday night.”
I didn’t really want to return to the subject, having escaped it so effectively for a time; but the discussion was unavoidable. “Did you?” I replied. “And what did you hear?”
“Hey, Doc, it’s all over the local news!” Lucas grinned. “Some kid got shot after you got him to give up a hostage? You’re a hero, they say—you and Major McCarron.”
I grunted. “Yeah, that would be the official version. Perfect for the local news. Except that there was no God damned hostage, Lucas. Just the lousy ME covering his own cowardice. They murdered that kid, after I told him he’d be all right. But they’ll never admit as much.”
“Really? Shit…” Lucas was, once more, mildly angered. “Fuckin’ television. Again…”
“Indeed. And now that we’ve reviewed that point, suppose I take a guess at what’s up with your sister: she’s isn’t sure she should let you spend time up here with Mike and me.”
The kid glanced my way. “Didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure that one, hunh? Though I still wouldn’t mind hearing how you knew it. Never having met her, and all.”
“All right. Those old superstitions you repeated about Death’s Head Hollow when we first met, for a start, along with that insanity about my chopping up brains. And…” I tried, now, to tread carefully. “Your friend Derek no doubt told your sister his impressions about what I said that day.” Lucas began to look indignant, so I rushed to explain: “It’s not that I’m accusing him of snitching, or anything, but—you and I both know how he is, don’t we? And he was scared and confused, that day. So he let his concerns slip to someone he trusts. Finally, your sister almost certainly heard what you saw on television. So—she’s worried.”
“Well, can you blame her?” Lucas protested; and that same quality of quick defense of his sister that I admired shone through again. “They had a damned riot in North Fraser, after you left. Busted through cop barricades, burned all kindsa shit—”
That halted my steps. “Really?” I said, feeling a peculiar sense of satisfaction.
“Fuck yeah, they did,” Lucas answered. “And the funny thing now is, people in town who’d usually be screaming the N-word all over the place are shouting about the cops, instead.”
I thought of Latrell, and how fitting it was that there had been some kind of demonstration, if not in his honor, then at least in protest of his death; and one aimed at the right target, too. “Well,” I mused. “That’s something, anyway…”
“And to top it all off,” Lucas continued, a bit puzzled, “I don’t know what the hell you thought you were doing, but they got a picture of you on TV letting off a couple of rounds into the air with what looked like an old .45—that was you, right?”
“Ah.” I remembered the moment of my outburst that night. “Yes, I fear it was.”
Lucas’ face screwed up in puzzlement. “What kind of psychologist packs a damned .45, anyway?” He caught himself. “Right, right, a criminal psychologist.”
“Any criminal psychologist, who’s got some sense in his head,” I replied, as we passed through the enclosure gate. “So, returning to the original question, add all of that to what you’ve told us about your sister, who would only need to be sane to be worried about you getting too close to this investigation, in the first place—but she’s more than sane, isn’t she? She’s smart, she’s been through hell, and she doesn’t want the same for you and Derek. So, no, I can’t blame her for being worried. In fact, it’s a miracle that she’s even considering letting you go on.”
“Yep,” Lucas said. “That’s about it. And she says that if I do want to go on, you and Mike have gotta come down to the house. She says it’ll be just to meet her, but I’d guess my cousin will be there, too. Remember I told you I got a cousin, Caitlin, who’s a state trooper? She keeps tabs on us, since our folks ran away—”
“ ‘Since our folks ran away,’ ” I re
peated slowly. “It still sounds so strange…”
“Hey, you’re telling me,” Lucas replied quickly. “Anyway, Caitlin. She kinda showed Ambyr about keeping track of the house and the bills and shit, in the beginning, and she busts my ass if I ditch school too much or my grades go down too low; that kind of thing. So she’ll swing by in her cruiser, if she’s assigned to this area for a day or two. Anyway…” Lucas had to pause to catch his breath after repeating the word, because he was rattling off personal facts fairly quickly, which made him very self-conscious, especially because of his genuine desire to make his participation in the investigation work out; and that was good to see. “Ambyr’s worried about me blowing off school to come up here, which I told her I ain’t gonna do, and I ain’t, since school’s the place where you want me to find stuff out. But yeah, she’s also worried about it being dangerous because of what happened Friday night. And then there’s one last thing, about when the summer term lets out in a couple of weeks.”
“Why, what happens then?” I asked, watching the hollow carefully for signs of Gracie Chang’s approach.
“Well, see, the end of July and August,” Lucas went on, still quickly and nervously, “that’s when most guys my age can get jobs with one, maybe two farmers, getting hay and corn and anything else in. And we make some good money during that time, which Ambyr’s worried about losing. So, well, I kinda told her that I would talk to you. About, uh—about getting paid.”
“ ‘Paid’?” I repeated, turning to the boy in mostly mock indignation. “You expect to not only learn the ropes of true criminal investigation, but to get paid for the privilege?”
“Hey, it’s not me!” Lucas quickly defended. “But it’s what’s got Ambyr worried.”
“Right,” I droned. “So I assume, then, that you couldn’t work for us and get the crops in?”
“Oh, no way,” Lucas said smoothly, having plainly anticipated the question. “See, I’ll have to make the investigative work I do, learning it and doing it, pretty full-time.”
“Unh-hunh…” But in fact I felt for Lucas, who was truly sweating these considerations. “Okay, kid,” I finally determined. “Take it up with Mike. He’s in charge of my finances—apparently. Tell him what you would usually make for honest labor, and we’ll try to match it.”
“Yeah?” Lucas said, enormously relieved.
“Sure, why not?” I answered. “The way this investigation’s going, we may all be in jail, soon, anyway, so let’s be sure your family won’t suffer while you’re doing time.”
“And you’ll come down and meet Ambyr?”
“I will. And so will Mike. And we’ll behave. Let’s say Tuesday afternoon, we need to work through tomorrow.”
“Awesome!” I thought the kid was going to do a little jig right there on the dirt path to the hangar. “And you know what else you could do, Doc—bring Marcianna with you.”
“To Surrender?” I was astounded and unnerved by just the thought.
“Yeah! We could smuggle her into our house, nobody’ll know. Derek’s already blabbed about seeing her, and Ambyr, she would love to meet her. She loves all kinds of cats. It would ice the deal—unless you think Marcianna might go crazy.”
“No, it isn’t that,” I answered slowly. “She’ll behave, if she’s on the leash and nobody messes with her. But I’ll have to think about it—” I stopped short, having caught sight of what could only have been Gracie Chang’s car: a zippy new Ford Focus ST, metallic blue, headed up the hollow and then turning in toward the barns below. “Uh-oh,” I said. “Company.”
Lucas followed my gaze. “Whoa—somebody big? Should I make myself scarce?”
“No,” I answered slowly. “No, in fact, stick around, Lucas. This may be just the chance to take the next step in your education.” I thought the matter over quickly. “Just get up in the plane and lay low, until I tell you otherwise.”
“But if they’re from the state,” he protested. “I mean, I can’t get into any trouble like that, Ambyr’ll frickin’ butcher my ass.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s nobody with that kind of power. Just another psychologist—she was there Friday. But what she wants to talk about now, I don’t know. Mike thinks she’s not happy with how the state people are doing things. So just stay calm and keep your trap shut.”
“Well—” Lucas got that game tone back into his voice, and headed up the steel steps into the JU-52. “Okay, Doc. If you think it’s important.”
“Oh, I think it might be more than important,” I said, starting to smile. “I think it might actually be fun…”
{ii.}
It of course occurred to me to wonder, at several points during our meeting with Gracie Chang, if maybe I shouldn’t send Lucas racing home, being as I knew fairly early on that the fun of the meeting might involve “some little danger,” or at least trouble; and given his sister’s stated concerns, it seemed we might be passing some boundary that, if things went badly, would be impossible even for a boy of his quick wits to find his way back across. Still, there were probably going to be very real principles—both investigative and psychological—involved in the meeting, all of them necessary for Lucas to begin to understand. And so at each moment of doubt, my mind turned back to the riskier option, in the hope that it would not become the most reckless.
After Gracie had parked her Ford and joined Mike and me at the hangar, we exchanged very pleasant greetings as we prepared to gather around an old Formica-topped kitchen table that sat under the nose of the JU-52. It took some time to get seated, however, as Gracie proved to have a youthful and entirely charming enthusiasm for the plane itself. She peppered me with an almost endless stream of questions about not only the aircraft, but the man who had brought her to the Americas and then barnstormed with her around the New World.
“Was he always a pilot?” Gracie asked, her face filling with a wonder to match Lucas’ expression when he’d first come upon the plane.
“From his youth,” I said with a nod. “A smaller hangar originally stood on this site, and he filled it with a succession of biplanes, before he joined the Lafayette Escadrille and flew in World War I.” That set off a long burst of inquiries about my great-grandfather’s wartime service, one that displayed a rather surprising breadth of knowledge; and I did my best to answer them, but quickly, given Mike’s and my rather urgent desire to get down to business.
“Well, Gracie,” I asked at length, attempting an easy air that did not match my mood, “what do you say we discuss your actual reasons for coming?”
“Oh!” she noised, her lissome frame straightening. “I’m sorry, it’s just—” She gazed at the plane a final time as she approached the table. “You don’t usually see things like this, just sitting on somebody’s farm. And so you run your investigations from inside it?”
“Along with our teaching,” Mike replied. “Maybe you’d like a tour, Gracie, once we get done with this other stuff—”
“Although, we’ve really got to start getting tomorrow’s classes ready,” I cut in, remembering the hidden Lucas as I tried to remind Mike that we didn’t yet know enough about Gracie’s true purposes to allow her to see what was on display inside the JU-52.
“Hmm, true,” Mike said, realizing his mistake.
“Oh, hey, don’t worry about it,” Gracie said cheerfully. “If we don’t have time today, we’ll do it some other time, when you’re less busy. So—to our business, then…” She shook her head a few times as if to clear it; and by the time she sat down with her narrow back to the plane, her countenance indicated that she’d fully resumed the persona of mature psychologist. Those usually genial features quickly filled with anxiety as she leaned over the table and began to speak in grave tones about how sorry she was for how things had turned out on Friday night:
“I suppose Mike’s told you that I argued pretty strenuously against their taking the course that they did, Dr. Jones.” She had slung her simple black Bottega Veneta hobo bag on the back of her chai
r, and draped her similarly reserved but costly Alexander McQueen linen jacket over it (Gracie was prepared to sacrifice much to living upstate, but not being the clotheshorse daughter of a well-to-do Queens merchant); and it was easy to see very light perspiration forming through her sheer Anne Fontaine white shirt. This was not due to the evening heat, however, for if the microburst had done one good thing, it had cooled the temperature off considerably. “And frankly,” she went on, folding her hands tightly, “I’ve been extremely concerned about their approach to this case from the beginning. There’s been a lot more talk about political and bureaucratic agendas up and down the line than there has been about working out a sensible theory that fits the deaths of these kids.” To her credit, it was evident that this fact, predictable though it was, did indeed disturb our guest in a deep way. “I mean, I’m no babe in the woods, here, I’ve seen prosecutorial bureaucracies in action—hell, I worked in New York, just like you guys did. Well, maybe not just like you guys, I was still learning the ropes, then, but I saw the kind of pressures that can sometimes be brought to bear on a case. And I’m telling you, I never saw anything as egregious during my time in the big city as I’ve seen in this county, on this case.”
“So,” Mike asked carefully, “you’ve been in on their investigation from the start?”
“Not from the very start,” Gracie answered, folding her hands tightly. “No one at the senior county or state levels was. After all, they only had one apparently runaway girl, then, who seemed to have come home to kill herself, although the pathologists later judged—”
“Hold on, Gracie,” I cut in uneasily. “ ‘One apparently runaway girl’? Meaning what?”
Gracie nodded. “That’s right—you haven’t been told about Frank Mangold’s latest discovery. In fact, I don’t even think that Sheriff Spinetti’s been told about it yet.”
“Suppose you tell us, then,” Mike pried with amiable charm. “Sounds like it’s important.”
“It is,” Gracie said. “See, nobody really thought that Kelsey Kozersky was just a runaway. Not after they got the path report on the Howard boy’s death—that’s when I came in, by the way—and especially not after the pathologists said the Capamagio girl fit the same pattern that Kyle and Kelsey did: choreographed scenes of death. All of which made it, well…”