Chapter 19 #2
"A river in the U-P near Newberry,” I answer. "Great trout fishing. Whole lot of blackflies, No-See-Ums, and mosquitoes so big you could ride ‘em into battle."
"Oh. But, just because—"
"I know, Mosely. He was a rookie deputy when my dad was sheriff, and by all accounts, Warnicki really liked and respected my dad, but then again, so did everyone. It's hard to find anyone who had a single bad thing to say about my father."
Mosely lets out a breath. “Sir, with respect, of course, no one is going to badmouth your deceased father to your face."
I growl. "I know that. But I've never even heard second- or third-hand reports of anyone disliking Craig Mannix."
Mosely hums. "My gut tells me Beasley is involved, somehow. My thinking is that Beasley junior killed Amber Brunner, and Beasley senior covered it up. Your father must’ve found some sort of evidence linking him to Jared’s involvement, and that got him killed.”
"Well, if I assign you to Warnicki, you can do some more on-the-books digging into those case files. You can claim truthfully that I assigned you to do some investigation on a no-rush basis."
"Why hasn't Warnicki ever looked into it?”
"Because there's too much other work for him to do.
The county is over four hundred square miles and I've got maybe half a dozen deputies on shift at any given time to cover the whole county, downtown, and the man the station.
So at any given time, Warnicki is actively investigating at least a dozen cases across the county, ranging from looking into conflicting reports of a domestic disturbance to a rash of break-ins somewhere.
The man barely has time to take a piss, let alone spare time for a twenty-year-old cold case. "
"And suddenly you can spare me to be his assistant?"
I snort. "Hell no, I can't. I need you on patrol. Velasquez is useless on patrol, and if you tell anyone I said that, I'll have you writing parking tickets until you're older than Beasley."
"God, Velasquez," Mosely sighs. "If that man calls me chief one more goddamn time…"
"Do not get me started, Mosely. He calls me boss at least five times per conversation."
"So why don’t you fire him?”
"Because he likes the front desk for some reason and no one else does, and he’s good at it.
Plus, I'm always short on deputies, so I can't fire him just because he's the most annoying motherfucker I've ever met.
" I hiss through my teeth, irritated at my loose tongue.
"I should not be saying this to you, Deputy Mosely. "
He just laughs. “Your secret is safe with me, sir. I hate writing tickets more than just about anything, so I'll do whatever I gotta do to stay off patrol and on the investigation team, including holding my tongue about the fact that you find Velasquez as annoying as I do.”
"You mean you didn't become a cop to write speeding tickets?"
He laughs. "No, sir, I did not."
"We talked about the sir bullshit, Mosely."
"How about you call me Carter instead of Mosely, and I'll see about cutting down the sirs."
I laugh. "Thanks for the update, Carter.
And remember, any digging you do is quiet.
I don't want word getting out. Dad's death really messed this place up for a long time—he was the cornerstone of the community. Beasley was not well-liked by most, but he had his disciples, and those guys are not nice people.” I sigh again.
“But as I said, let me think about things and go over some stuff, and we'll circle back Monday. "
"Should we put a pin in it? Discuss ways of optimizing our synergy?"
"Huh?"
"Nothing. It's just…’circle back’ is classic corporate-speak lingo. I was mocking you, sir."
"Mosely?"
"Sir?"
"Fuck off."
"Yes sir, fucking off, sir."
"You're a snarky little shit, aren't you?"
"You have no idea, Sheriff. I'm still getting my sea legs."
"Oh boy. This oughta be fun." I pull the phone away from my ear. "Bye, Mosely," I say loudly, and then tap the red X to end the call. I toss the phone aside and glance down at Lacey, dozing on my chest. "Sorry about that."
"Mmm," she hums. "Don't be." She lazily scratches my chest with her fingernails, just beneath her chin. "Your job is important, and finding out what happened to your dad even more so.”
"Thanks for understanding." My brain is racing, trying to put other fragments together into puzzle pieces.
"I do have one question, though,” Lacey says, pulling me out of my thoughts.
"Hmm?"
"He asked who it was talking and you dodged the question. Why?"
"Because I'm not ready to talk about you and me with Carter Mosely.
He's a 21-year-old deputy, not my buddy.
He's helping me with the cold cases because he's interested and he's got good instincts, and I've gotten precisely nowhere on my own.
" I circle my arms around her shoulders.
"We're still figuring things out between us, Lace.
The last thing either of us needs is the town rumor mill kicking into overdrive. "
She huffs onto my chest. "You aren't wrong. But then, you're assuming it's not already."
I groan a laugh. "Fuck, you're right—I'm sure someone has talked."
At that moment, my phone rings again, and I groan another laugh. "Goddammit."
Lacey kisses my pec. "Just answer it, CoCo."
I snag the device and glance at the screen; my contact poster for Nyx is one I'd never, ever, under pain of torture and death, admit to even having: the one photo in existence, so far as I know, of Cody Nyx before he got the dental implants. It's a candid shot on an old-ass iPhone from across The Borderline. He's dancing with Barbie, she of the monstrously enormous natural tits even larger than Lacey’s augmented ones, Nyx’s on-again-off-again-not-really-but-sort-of-girlfriend-slash-fuckbuddy, and now, according to Mosely, a possibly crucial witness into Amber Brunner’s disappearance.
He's grinning, and you can see his missing teeth—all ten of the front ones were knocked out in a giant bar fight back in the early teens, 2011, 2012, somewhere around there.
He walked around with a hole in his face until he got temporary dentures, which he wore until he could afford permanent implants.
This photo is from before he got the dentures.
He'd murder me and hide my body if he knew it existed, and he would haunt my immortal soul if he knew it was my contact pic for him.
Lacey lifts up to see who it is. "Nyxie?" She tugs the phone lower. "What the hell happened to his teeth?"
I clap a hand over her mouth. "You cannot say anything about that, ever. You can't tell him this picture exists, that you saw it, or that you even know about his teeth. I'll explain later." I answer the call. "Yo, Nyxie. What's up, brother?"
"How's Lacey?"
"Um."
He snickers. "You think I don't know you snuck over to see her when she crashed at the building next door?"
"You were asleep!"
"Bro. Bro-seph. Bro-tato chip. Bro-tein shake."
"Nyx," I growl in annoyed warning.
"I sleep with one eye open, Holy Cole-y. Always have. You know that. Comes from growing up the way I did, and some habits never die. Heard talking, got up, saw you bringing coffee to Lacey."
"And then snuck back to bed and pretended to sleep."
"Snuck back to couch and actually did go back to sleep. So, how is she? Besides even more generously endowed in the chesticle department than she was fifteen years ago."
"Hiya, Nixie," Lacey says loudly enough to be sure he hears her. “I’m good. Yes, I got an augmentation. No, I won't show you. And I'm…I'm actually…mostly okay, which is quite an improvement for me.”
"Got our boy Holy Cole-y to thank for that, I'm guessing?"
"Quit calling me that, fucker. You know I hate it."
Nyx ignores me. "So. You're back in town, by yourself, staying at Cammy's—officially, at least—and you're with Cole at home, close enough to hear me on the phone, and I know for a fact Cole doesn't usually do speakerphone. Means you guys are cozy. I like it."
"Nyx—" I start.
"I'm talking to Lacey, butt-face Jones. You can shut it."
"I've got it, CoCo," she murmurs to me under her breath.
"CoCo?" Nyx repeats.
"Fuck," Lacey hisses. "I forgot how good his hearing is."
"Like a mothafuckin' bat, that's how it is. Who the actual shitting Moses McFuck is CoCo?"
Lacey cackles, takes the phone from me, puts it on speaker, and lays it on my chest. "Where do you come up with this shit, Nyx? Shitting Moses McFuck?"
"I'm a creative guy, baby girl, what can I say?"
"She ain't your baby girl, dick-breath."
Lacey covers the microphone with her hand, puts her lips to my ear to breathe quietly enough that even Nyx cannot hear. "You say dick-breath like it's a bad thing."
"How about gorl?" Nyx says, oblivious to the whispered aside. "Can I call her baby gorl?” he says with a guttural roll of the o-r-l sound.
"Is this a cartoon thing again?" I ask.
"Gorls, Lucy—Lucy, Gorls," he says in a weird quasi-Russian accent.
"Dude, speak English."
“He's quoting Minions," Lacey mutters.
"Minions two, actually."
"Nyx has a thing about animated movies," I explain.
"Animated movies are a superior storytelling medium to live action films," Nyx says, winding up for his usual rant when this comes up.
"They're pure of spirit—pure entertainment.
They evoke the human condition more effectively because they come at it from a unique angle.
Like talking toys or bugs or dogs or weird yellow dudes. "
Lacey laughs. "Oh Nyx," she sighs. "I really did miss you."
He clears his throat. “You—you did?"
"Yes! You, Felix, Riley. I missed all of you."
"Cole missed you. His Dudley Do-Right ass pined over you for fifteen years."
"Dudley who?" Lacey says.
"Dudley Do-Right of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police," Nyx explains. "Rocky and Bullwinkle?"
“Oh, from that old cartoon with the squirrel and the moose."
"MOOSE AND SQUIRREL!" Nyx shouts in a Russian accent.
Lacey cackles. "Nyx, you're such a fucking loon."