Timothy
I spent too much time in a hospital as my father lay dying and, for me, it will always be a place of fear and sorrow. Regret.
Things left unsaid.
I stand outside the doorway to Iggy Rose Caine’s room, knock on the frame.
Brock Caine’s drawn, pale face reminds me too much of the way I felt as my father slowly faded away, nothing anyone could
do, monitors beeping, at the end the machine breathing for him. He waves me in; I flash my shield.
Brock’s mother, Marge Caine, paces the room, holding the baby who has fallen asleep in her arms. Her lined face is a mask
of concern, even as she softly hums to her grandchild.
Usually, we look to the husband when harm comes to the wife. But I don’t view Brock Caine as a suspect; his love, his grief
and fear are too evident. He’s as straight as they come, not even a parking citation or an overdue library book that I can
find. And besides, just because it’s often the husband, doesn’t mean it always is.
The young intern holds Iggy’s chart, listing off the various ways in which Iggy’s organs are failing, that’s she’s febrile, that her blood oxygen levels are dropping.
That they don’t quite understand why. Poisoning or virus could be the cause, but so far nothing conclusive has turned up in her blood.
Has she traveled? Walked in the woods? Tick-borne illness is possible. Neurotoxins. Salmonella. Listeria.
Brock and his mother, Marge, seem at a loss.
When the intern leaves us, I stay by the door. It seems wrong to move farther into the room, invasive, but I have questions.
And maybe the answers will lead to help for Iggy.
“Sorry to trouble you at a difficult time,” I say. “Detective Timothy Bandeau. I’m investigating the murder of Paul Hayes.”
Brock looks at me with a furrowed brow. “You think that has something to do with what happened to Iggy?”
I shake my head. “Too soon to say. Just asking questions at this point.”
“Was Iggy having any trouble with anyone? Maybe at work?”
Brock looks to Iggy, as if she might answer. “She’s been on maternity leave. She wasn’t even sure she was going back.”
“Did you want her to go back?”
“I mean—” He looks at me earnestly. “I wanted her to do what she thought was best for her and the baby. I want her to be happy
with her choices down the road, and for Noah to have everything he needs. She hasn’t decided.”
“Money issues? Debt?”
“No,” he answers. “We’re careful with money. She’s always been frugal.”
A single tear trails. He wipes at it angrily.
“I’m sorry for all the questions.” Sometimes I apologize even when I don’t have reason to. It seems to make people feel better,
more comfortable. And sometimes that helps them to be more open.
He lifts a palm. “No, I get it. You’re just being thorough. That’s your job.”
“Problems in the marriage? Infidelity?”
“No, no.” He shakes his head vigorously. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I glance at his mother, but she’s focused on the baby. If she has an opinion about her son’s marriage, she’s keeping it to herself.
“What about Iggy? Angry exes? Anything like that?”
“No, I don’t think so. We’ve both been with other people. But like I said she just had a baby. We’ve both been home, like
all the time. The brunch was one of her first outings without Noah, except a few date nights when we left him with my mom.”
“Anybody unstable in your past?”
He shrugs, seems reluctant. Then, “I—uh—dated Ana. We broke up long before Iggy and I got together.”
I almost let out a laugh. Another connection to Ana Blacksmith; Brock and Ana used to date. Now Brock is married to her best
friend, Iggy. Who is currently languishing in a coma. Ana’s ex is in the morgue. Are these loose connections enough to get
a warrant to search her place? Probably not.
“You found her unstable.”
“Maybe not unstable? Just, I don’t know, she has a bad temper. I suppose our breakup—well, she broke up with me—was amicable enough. I got the sense after a while that she just didn’t like me all that much, you know? In a lot of ways,
if I’m being honest, it was a relief that I didn’t have to break up with her. She’s a lot.”
In my experience, when a man says that a woman is “a lot,” it generally means that he’s not enough, can’t handle intensity or passion, intelligence or independence.
I can see that fire in her, how she’d be a lot to handle in a relationship. How she was a lot to handle in a bathroom romp,
fiery and passionate, present, lots of biting and nails in my back. I don’t mind a little heat. Actually, I enjoy it. I’m
still feeling that bite of disappointment when I realized she slipped out the back. I think about the way she looked at me
tonight. Fire. But something else. What was it?
“No bad blood there?” I say now.
“No,” he says emphatically. “We’re all adults, right? Ana was with Paul until—you know—recently. She seemed happy with him. He was maybe more her type.”
“What type would that be?” Not strictly a professional interest.
“I think she likes bad boys.”
Marge gives a huff but keeps quiet.
“Something to add?” I ask.
“I’ve known Ana and her sister since they came to live with their Aunt Agnes. And those girls have always been trouble. Especially
Ana.”
My thoughts turn—again—to our encounter a few weeks ago. Stupid. Careless. I really need to delete that app from my phone.
Sex in a bar bathroom with a stranger is behavior that would certainly be frowned upon by my superiors. Probably I should
report it, maybe even recuse myself from this investigation.
But embarrassment keeps me from doing so. Plus, I’m the only homicide detective in a sadly underfunded department. We don’t
even have money in the budget for coffee in the break room. Anyway, it’s not relevant to this case, that I randomly slept
with someone who later might be a murder suspect. Right? That’s what I’m telling myself.
From the pocket of my jacket, I remove my phone and show Brock pictures of the extremely creepy doll we found at the scene.
Not really a doll. More of a bound pile of sticks that looks like a human figure. I’ve dropped the actual item at the lab
for analysis.
“Any idea what this is?”
Brock looks at the strange stick figure. The image is grainy, eerie. Does he go even paler? “What is that?”
“We found it at the scene where Paul’s body was discovered.”
He doesn’t say anything, just stares at it.
It is strange and mesmerizing. His mother leans in for a look.
She owns an organic herb and vegetable market in town, is vocal at town meetings, formed a committee to clean up some abandoned lots and turn them into community gardens.
At the youth center, she teaches the kids about healthy eating.
She’s one of the people working to save the center, as I am.
We’ve lost funding—an expected donation never came in.
And if we don’t find money soon, we might have to close the doors.
I push those thoughts away for now, though it’s a big deal to me.
The kids who I work with there really rely on that place as a safe haven. They rely on me.
“The tracker who found it said that it was a voodoo doll,” I offer.
Marge snorts. “A voodoo doll,” she repeats. “That’s ridiculous. It’s just a bunch of sticks and leaves.”
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” I press.
Marge shakes her head.
“Never?”
“No,” she says. “Never.”
Brock averts his gaze, watching Iggy. Okay. Change tack.
“Did Iggy have any kind of a history with Paul Hayes?”
Brock releases a deep breath. “They worked together a long time ago. She wasn’t a fan. Said he was the kind of guy who was
handsy and overly solicitous one day, mean and insulting the next. She warned Ana to stay away from him. But Ana wouldn’t
listen.”
More connections. Ana used to date Brock. Iggy used to work with Paul. Feels entangled.
“When was the last time she had contact with him?”
“That I know of? Not for years.”
Secrets and lies have a vibration, a kind of hum that sounds beneath all the other sounds.
There’s something. What am I missing?
I am about to press about the doll when Iggy’s monitor starts beeping wildly, her eyelids fluttering.
“Iggy?” says Brock. He presses the button for the nurse, and footsteps start moving hurriedly up the hall. “Iggy!”
I step outside and leave as the nurses rush in. It seems right to leave. Maybe Iggy can hear us, something we said upsetting her. The young intern comes running, starts barking orders. Soon Iggy is surrounded, Brock pushed away. The baby starts crying, Marge trying to comfort them both.
As I start to leave, I turn and catch Marge’s gaze. But she turns away, back to her distressed family.
As I step into the frigid night, my phone pings.
I don’t suppose you would believe me if told you I didn’t do this.
Ana.
The truth is I don’t know what to think about this woman. I only know that I’ve thought of little else since our first meeting.
Faith is not part of my job, I answer, moving quickly into the warmth of the car. Inside, I start the engine and crank the heat. A few moments pass and
I think she’s not going to say any more. Then,
What does that mean?
I follow the evidence.
A couple of pings come in quick succession. A link to a blog article. A screen shot of Paul’s ConnectIn page. Another screen
shot of what looks like an angry text exchange between Paul and someone in his contacts listed as The Witch.
Paul Hayes had a lot of enemies.
The first link is to a website called Jezebel, a post entitled What Happened to #MeToo?
An anonymous writer provides details on how she was harassed at work, took a payout, signed an NDA, and finally had to leave the company anyway because she was “frozen out” and passed over for promotions.
Paul Hayes is not mentioned by name. How are these men still getting away with it?
The article concludes, When does it end?
There’s a screen shot of an angry post on Paul’s professional page. One day, you’re going to pay for things you’ve done, someone calling herself Jezebel, same as the site, no picture, threatens. I make a note.
Finally, there’s the screen shot of a text chain.
The Witch: I’m tired of asking. You owe me 100K.
Paul: I don’t have it.
The Witch: That’s bullshit. I don’t want this to get ugly.
Paul: What is that supposed to mean?
The Witch: Pay me by the end of the month or you’ll find out.
Another threat. The Witch. Jezebel. Is it the same person? Did Paul owe money? Or was he being blackmailed?
I send the links to my Gen Z tech nerd, the only nod our small department has made to the changing times. Birch is young,
savvy, too often reduced to IT and keeping our aging computers alive, recovering lost documents. Can you do your magic with any of this? Real names? Addresses?
He’s also wildly overeager for anything the resembles detective work.
On it! he replies almost instantaneously.
I take a moment to consider how much of my work and communications are digital, how the trails that often lead to the truth are online and not in the real world.
Strange how things have changed, how fast. I still think about my childhood, sandy, salty, catching lizards, and getting sunburned.
Skim boarding. Always out in nature. Here, I walk the miles of trails, try to immerse myself in the same way, but the phone is always with me now.
Has something changed in me that doesn’t allow for disconnection anymore?
I think of the voodoo doll, of the woman in the park, the one who disappeared into the woods. Real-world clues that leave
no trail I can follow.
A knock on the passenger side window moves through me like an electric shock. I drop my phone.
There she is. A darkly beautiful mirage shimmering in the glass. I hesitate a second, unlock the door, and Ana climbs inside,
fills the car with her scent, her energy.
The pull to her is magnetic. I want my lips on hers, her hands in my hair. This is so wrong.
“Did you get my texts?” She tugs at a strand of her hair, then holds her hands up to heat coming from the vents.
“I did.”
“Well?” She turns to lock me in her gaze.
I take a breath. “I’m following every lead. I promise you that.”
She wraps her arms around her middle, looks suddenly young, vulnerable. I guess she is both of those things. “You haven’t
just decided it was me?”
“I haven’t decided anything.”
“He had enemies.”
“I’m getting that.”
Lithe as a cat, she moves over the center console, straddles me. In spite of every better instinct, I wrap her up in my arms,
feel her warmth, her softness.
“We can’t do this,” I moan, as she presses herself against me.
“I know,” she says, breath hot in my ear. “This is bad. Will you come visit me in jail?”
I put my mouth on her delicate throat, feel her life force pulsing there. There’s something wild between us, something untamable. And I’m going to lose my job for sure if I don’t get it under control. She smells of flowers and sex. Goddamn.
“Stop,” I say.
She leans back and smiles at me, runs a finger along my cheek. I take her hand, on impulse press it to my lips. “Okay,” she
says. “No means no, Detective.”
And then she’s getting out of the car, taking her heat, the frigid night air like a cold shower.
“I’m innocent,” she says. “Of this anyway.”
Sauntering into the dark, she disappears.