A Shred of Truth

  “My brother’s more the history buff anyway. Unless we’ve got a Stuart Axman wandering the streets of Nashville, I doubt there’s anything there.”

  “I checked some variations of the name. Nothing seemed to match up.”

  “Well, thanks for looking into it.” My gaze ran along the hotel’s second-floor landing. “You’d better get going. Your hot date.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “Your brother’s gone home for the evening, and you’d be well advised to follow suit.”

  “What about police protection? Did Johnny show you the e-mail I printed out?”

  “He did.”

  “And that qualifies as a threat, right? Especially after the attack at the statue.”

  “It raises concerns, certainly, and I understand why you’d be upset, but please, try to relax. For a number of reasons, though, Metro can’t respond to every incriminating letter. There are financial factors, legal ones too. Domestic-violence victims can be referred to safe houses, but that’s generally the extent of it. Hate to contradict the movies, but that’s the facts.”

  “So there’s nowhere Johnny can go for the night? He needs to be hidden until you find his attacker.”

  “He could check himself into a hotel. Or stay with a friend or family member.”

  “You’re telling me you won’t do anything for him.” At the hotel’s street entrance, a pair of headlights dipped, bounced, then flashed across my car window. I turned from the glare.

  “On any given day there are a dozen threats of this sort.”

  “In other words, your hands are tied until a crime’s been committed. Meanwhile, this AX person gets to roam around. What about the aggravated assault? Or Nadine Lott’s murder? Don’t those factor into this?”

  “If it’s any comfort, I did request increased patrol on your block tonight.”

  “Thanks.” The car was pulling in three spaces away, and I hunched down with the phone pressed to my ear.

  He sighed. “You have to understand my position.”

  “Yeah, I get it. You need a corpse before you can act.”

  “Mr. Black, have you ever contemplated killing someone?”

  “What?” Memories of my youth caromed through my head, years in which vengeance and survival had kept me tightly wound. My tattoos had been a strident warning to friend and foe: don’t mess with Aramis Black.

  “It’s a straightforward question,” he prompted. “A simple yes or no.”

  “You’re a cop. What do you expect me to say?”

  “I’m off duty, remember? I’m not asking for a signed confession.”

  “Okay. Sure. Who hasn’t?”

  “Which explains why we can’t assign round-the-clock protection every time a citizen of Davidson County considers such things. It’d be a logistical nightmare.”

  His words became garbled as I lifted my head and identified the newly arrived vehicle—the curve of the windows, the size of the chassis, the shape of the brake lights. Felicia’s car had raised all sorts of questions, but this recent arrival elevated them to neon paranoia. Was my own imagination getting the best of me?

  “Did I lose you?”

  “Still here,” I said, staring in surprise at the new car.

  “Please assure me that you won’t disregard everything I’ve said.”

  “Dude, not at all.” I tried to sound calm. “Sorry for bugging you.”

  “Considering the day you’ve had, I suggest getting a good night’s sleep.”

  Deep breath. “Yeah, and you have a nice date with your wife.”

  “Mm-hmm.” He seemed wary of my sudden attitude change. “Take care of yourself.”

  “Peace.” I closed the phone.

  Three spaces away the latest arrival was another economy-sized Hyundai sedan, dark green. A duplicate of Felicia’s. Apparently, now that I had this specific car on my mental radar, I was spotting them everywhere. We’d discussed this phenomenon in social psych. Such heightened awareness was a well-documented trick of the human brain.

  But two of them? In the same lot on the same night?

  Don’t let down your guard. Not yet.

  From the cockpit, a middle-aged couple emerged. They lumbered toward their first-level room and disappeared inside with nary a hint of affection. While I respect their generation’s desire to “keep things proper”—and I admit my age group has cheapened the whole business—I couldn’t help wondering if anything went on behind those closed doors.

  Again I studied the matching cars. Gave a caustic chuckle.

  Stickers in the left corner of the rear windows indicated that both Hyundais came from a rental agency at nearby Nashville International Airport.

  Odd coincidence, yes. Earthshaking evidence, no.

  Suddenly my accusatory thoughts seemed silly and circumstantial. I had to get a grip here. I was becoming a full-on head case.

  Still parked in the hotel lot, I decided to give it a few minutes. Lamps cast an inviting glow against the drawn curtains of room 212. What was Felicia doing up there all alone? Curled up with a suspense novel and a bottle of white zin?

  At the museum, she said she still thought about me. How would she react if I went to her door? What would she be wearing?

  Boys who grow up without a mother often crave female attention. Perpetuating the generalization, my brother and I became relational pyromaniacs, using behavior justification like matchsticks to start fires for the raw excitement of it, for the breathtaking heat of the flames. And yet we remained oblivious to women’s inner workings. By the time we realized the dangers of our activities, we’d burned and been burned numerous times.

  Johnny considers it all part of life. Animal instincts will have their say. I, on the other hand, have been trying to die to my old desires so that they might be rekindled in a purer form—with drier wood, so to speak, and fuel that’ll feed a fire that never goes out. A lady deserves nothing less, right? A lady like Sammie Rosewood.

  For the sake of example.

  Shadowed movement behind the curtains shot another burst of suspicion through my mind. Was Felicia being held captive? She said her life had been threatened. Least I could do was go up and knock. Put my fears to rest.

  I lifted myself from the Honda and jogged across the pavement to the foot of the stairway. Insects hummed nearby. Everything in me insisted this was a bad idea, one I’d come to regret. Black paint thrummed with the day’s heat as my fingers slid up the metal rail.

  13

  Excuse me.” A husky man was coming down the exterior hotel stairs.

  “Sorry.” I moved aside. “My bad.”

  It was the middle-aged driver of the second Hyundai. His sagging cheeks and double chin looked freshly shaved. He bore a plastic bucket, and from the bed of ice a foil-capped champagne bottle told me to stop assuming I understood the romantic overtures that played out among my elders.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You have a good night.”

  A mischievous grin tugged at his droopy mouth. The sly dog.

  At the top of the stairs, I was next confronted by the diapered boy. Mosquitoes circled his ebony arms and dimpled legs. Through walnut-brown eyes he took me in, then with a wobble he plopped down on his padded backside.

  “You okay?”

  “He’s aw-ight,” snapped the woman in the lawn chair. Her girth stretched pink bicycle shorts and a yellow tube top to their limits, while poor teeth and a hair net made it difficult to determine her age. The kid’s mother—or grandmother?—challenged me with a bleary, black-eyed stare.

  “S’up?” I greeted her. “Nice night out, huh?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Pretty humid though.”

  “This?” She emitted a throaty giggle. “Ever been to Louisiana?”

  “Love to go someday.”

  “Y’all think you know, don’t you?”

  Unsure of her meaning, I said, “Cute kid there.”

  “My sister’s.”
>
  “Lotsa bugs out tonight. He’s getting eaten alive.”

  “Nothin’ he ain’t used to.”

  When she shifted, I was assailed by a mental image of her collapsing in a heap of bright colors, bent aluminum, and beer-scented curses.

  “I know it’s none of my business,” I said, “but he really shouldn’t be out here.” I smacked a tiger mosquito that had landed on my arm, held out my bloodied palm as proof before wiping it on my jeans. “We’ve had local cases of the West Nile virus.”

  The woman’s facial muscles pulled at her wizened cheeks and eyelids. “West Nile? In that Superdome, right after Katrina, we had worse than that. My sister, gone just like that. Left me this kid to watch after and no money to speak of. Don’t see how it’s your place to tell me where I’m doing it wrong.” She ended with a rattling cough.

  “I … You’re right. I have no idea what you’ve been through.”

  She wagged her head, looked away. “Them TV crews move from disaster to disaster, while we in New Orleans still figurin’ how to live day by day.” She swore through rotted teeth, but it was more fatigue than malice.

  “I was outta line,” I said.

  “Mmm, tha’s mighty big of you.”

  Her defensiveness seemed extreme, but once again I’d judged this person and her situation prematurely. Christ was known for reaching out to the downtrodden, the orphans, and the poor—while I’d planned to step right on by.

  “Listen, I’d like to help,” I offered. “Mind if I get you something?”

  She pursed her lips. Raised an eyebrow. Scrutinized me without a word.

  “What if I go and buy you a can of bug spray? My gift to your nephew.”

  “Jug o’ milk. Fetch us some of that, too.”

  “Done deal.”

  “You be wantin’ somethin’ for it?”

  “No. It’s on me.”

  “I got my ways, you know.” Her eyes clouded over with the same weary knowledge I’d seen on the streets of Portland.

  “Your little man there, he needs to get inside.”

  In a single motion, she heaved from her seat, opened her room door, snagged the back of the kid’s diaper, and swung him through. “Satisfied? Now getcha gone.”

  My gaze slid along the walkway to Felicia’s door, then back toward the vision of yellow and pink beside the lawn chair. Would my decision in that moment have changed what was to come?

  I still wonder.

  Five minutes later I was paying for Purity milk, breakfast cereal, and Off! insect repellent. I drove back to the hotel and handed over the supplies.

  “I could spray the little guy, if you want.”

  “I can take care of my own,” his aunt told me.

  “Hope it helps.”

  “Set the milk down there by the door.”

  “Got you some Cheerios too.”

  “Cheerios? Hmmm.” She called her nephew onto the walkway, shook the repellent, and sprayed his chubby arms and back. “Stuff stinks, don’t it?”

  “Guess that’s why it works.”

  She gave no response. She finished off her beer, crumpled the can between her palms the way I’d expect a Titans tailgater to do, then dropped it with a clink onto the others by her chair. With one hand tugging at sweat-adhered bicycle shorts, the other at the toddler, she headed indoors.

  “Have a good night,” I mumbled.

  As I reached the bottom of the stairs, my cell rang.

  “Felicia.”

  “How’d you know it was me?”

  “Caller ID.”

  “Silly me. You recognized the hotel’s number.”

  “I’m smart like that.” From my vantage point at the foot of the exterior stairway, I could see the glow of her window. On the other side of the parking lot, evening traffic raced along Murfreesboro Pike.

  “How’d you find me here? I listened to your message after settling in for the night, and to be honest, I was a bit startled by it.”

  “As in scared?”

  “Uneasy is more like it. Did you follow me here?”

  “Not my style.” Technically it was true, and this seemed the wrong time to mention my proximity to her room. “But it wasn’t hard tracking you down. The unit was in your name.”

  “Persistent as always, I see.”

  “It’s how I got your attention when we first started dating.”

  “True enough, doll.”

  “So. Did you pay for the room? Or did he?”

  “He?”

  “Don’t play dumb.” I waved away a swarm of bugs. “Axman. The guy who flew you here, who bought you the dress.” There were things to be learned here, and Felicia remained my only direct link to the culprit.

  “No call for being rude,” she said.

  “I’m just on edge, okay?”

  “Forgive me if I’m not as alert as usual. I’m starting to fade. In fact, I’m … I was just heading to bed.”

  “That’s … nice. I’ll just ignore that mental image.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize you still cared.”

  “This guy,” I said, returning to the subject at hand. “He’s attacked my family and seems to know me. Knows stuff about my past. I’m in no mood for his little game.”

  “It’s not a game to him.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “I think he’s more than capable of carrying out his threats. If you want my suggestion, give him whatever it is he’s after so he’ll leave you alone.”

  A nearby cicada added its high shrill to the buzzing of mosquitoes. I surveyed the environs for any larger potential threats. Nothing out of place. Across the lot my Honda sat undisturbed, surrounded by the evening’s other arrivals, while the twin Hyundais still sat in defiance of my earlier presumptions.

  My gaze wandered back to room 212. “What is he after? I have no idea. A person who carves initials in someone’s shoulder—that’s a narcissist, a guy who lacks empathy. It’s all about him. Believe me, he’s only trying to yank our chains.”

  “After I left you at the museum, did you check the envelope in the hat? He must’ve given you some idea there. What’d you find?”

  “More games. And lies.”

  “Did you perchance keep the hat? I bought it just this morning for the steeplechase.”

  “The steeplechase,” I repeated. A red flag fluttered in my head.

  “The Iroquois. Don’t you remember? I told you—”

  “I remember. Sorry. The hat just wasn’t my color.”

  This glib response was meant to hide my sudden questions. Was it yet another coincidence that “steeple” was in the title of the sculpture I’d been sent to as well as in the name of the race Felicia had attended? Another religious clue? Most likely it had no bearing. Just my overactive mind again.

  At what point, though, did coincidences add up to something sinister?

  “Too bad,” she mused. “I really liked that hat.”

  “Could be in the museum’s lost and found. You can call tomorrow.”

  “I fly out at five a.m. So long, farewell.”

  The melancholy in her voice tried to pull me through the phone. She’d been drinking, so her mood was a result of the wine. But what if AX was in there with her? Was she trying to get me to come up for her protection?

  “Felicia, listen.” I crouched in the shadows, trying to think of questions she could respond to without raising an abductor’s suspicion. “Are you alone?”

  “You’d like to know?”

  “I’m serious. Yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not in any trouble?”

  “Not yet,” she slurred.

  “You sound tired. Don’t tell me you finished off that bottle.”

  “Bottle? Did I even mention the wine to you?”

  “Uh. C’mon, I can tell.”

  “You’re here, aren’t you? Should’ve expected as much.”

  “What do you mean? I’m not there.” A pathetic attempt.

  “Doll, you
never were good at fooling me. And truthfully, it’s always been a better part of your character, this desire to come to the rescue, to save the fair maiden. I knew you’d want to keep an eye on me.”

  “I admit, I am worried about you. But you say you’re okay?”

  “Why don’t you come up and see for yourself?”

  “What? I’m … How would I know which room to go to?”

  A giggle bubbled through my phone. “Don’t be silly. You need more than a rusty old railing to conceal that big frame of yours.”

  An upward snap of my neck gave me a clear view of her window. There, outlined by lamplight, a hand angled through the curtains and waved.

  “Hmm. Busted.”

  “Like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. It’s sweet though. I flew into town hoping we could reconnect. What do you say, doll?”

  “I can’t stay very long,” I replied. “He could be watching.”

  “Sure.”

  Flipping the phone closed, I headed up the stairs. Growing dread dogged my steps. I was vulnerable here, visible to the traffic on Murfreesboro Pike. One step. Another. Mosquitoes goaded me along the landing, little vampires craving blood. Their buzzing matched the tension of my nerves, hurrying me forward till I was standing at the threshold of room 212.

  I stared at the door, thought I saw movement behind the peephole. I started to turn away. Heard the release of a latch.

  “Not leaving now, are you?”

  “Hi.”

  She was wearing a silk robe. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come in.” She stepped back, the bedside lamp lighting her silhouette.

  14

  Back in the day, Portland’s dealers and low-level alley dwellers knew me by name. For anonymity, I tried early on to go with a street handle, but it never stuck. Aramis, they called me. Or just Black. Knowing that this bit of personal data floated at the top of the scum pond worried me, so much so that I’d kept a loaded .357 within reach of my king-size waterbed and a sawed-off shotgun above the mirrored headboard.

  Not that I ever waited for the cover of darkness to deal with my problems. If heat was coming down, I believed in head-on damage control—in broad daylight or in the pouring Oregon rain. Long-term security was a demanding job.

  Which meant hitting hard, hitting fast. But playing fair. Down in the gutters, even your enemies expect the game to be played by certain rules.