Freak Show (Episode One: The Nightshade Cases) Page 4

This was the worst part of her job, dealing with the loved ones. Murder she could handle. Grief, not so much. But Gerri had lots of practice and, though her heart was softer than she was willing to admit, she pushed down the wave of sorrow in answer to his naked emotions and nodded brusquely.

  “Was it busy in here last night?” Jackson stood to one side, leaning on the bar, rolling his eyes. If she thought she could get away with it, Gerri would have punched him in the face.

  She really needed to call her therapist.

  Salvador nodded, his comb over flopping to one side. From the look of his rumpled dress shirt, half buttoned, and the gaping zipper of his pants he’d dressed in a hurry, without thought or consideration. He had the look and feel of a man desperate to understand why his world seemed to collapse around him far too often. Disorientation and divided empathy for the victim and his own business told her he hadn’t had to think through the possibility he was a suspect. Which told her he was innocent, out of her personal pool of people of interest. Still, she had to ask.

  “As always on a Friday,” he said. “I spent most of it backstage.” He drew a shaking breath as she pulled her hand free, answering the question she preferred he answer without her prompting. “With the girls. I perform sometimes, still.” He gestured to one of the portraits and Gerri’s eyebrows shot up without her permission. The woman in the photo was stunning, though it was apparent the image was at least a few decades past. “Just for old time’s sake.”

  Good, she had him settled, less grief stricken and calmer. Interrogations were an art form, a slow dance between her and the person she spoke to. Some cops, she knew, just dove in, asked the obvious, stirred up hard feelings that made it difficult to find the truth. But she liked to do what she could to relax her subject before going for the throat.

  “Bet you make all the boys hot.” Gerri shot Jackson a shut the fuck up look while both Salvador and the guy behind the bar stared at him with clear hostility. So much for her usual approach. If he screwed this up for her, she was going to kick his ass for real, and to hell what her shrink said about it.

  Jackson looked away with a nasty smirk on his face. God, she hated his guts.

  “Maybe you’d like to go out and canvas with the rest of the officers.” It was Jackson’s turn to glare. Since she’d just cut him down and put him in the same category as a uniform, maybe she deserved it. But she smiled sweetly anyway. He grunted something that sounded like “bitch” and left.

  “Your partner is an asshole.” Salvador’s face flamed with anger.

  “You have no idea,” Gerri said. “Please, go on.”

  He hesitated and, for a moment, Gerri worried the spell was broken after all. But his trust for her hadn’t been damaged, fortunately. If anything, he leaned closer, the bond deeper for Jackson’s intrusion. Gerri refused to thank the bastard for it, but relented a little as Salvador went on.

  “Aisling is a favorite.” He shuddered, sobbed once. The young man behind the bar shook, turning away at the same time. Gerri’s eyes caught the movement, but she refocused on Salvador. She could talk to the kid later. “Was.” He looked away, toward the narrow stage, the cheesy pink sparkle velvet curtains, a bit threadbare even from a distance. “She loved to perform. And she knew how to pack a place.”

  The next question was delicate, but Gerri learned enough from Ray she was confident Salvador would answer. “Aisling was a stage name.” She glanced at the uniform who watched in silence, before nodding herself. “Was it a legal name change?”

  Salvador sighed, shrugged. “No,” he said. “Though she hated it. Aisling identified as female, unlike some of the queens who dance here.” He pointed skinny fingers at his chest. “Old case in point. I know she was in the process of completing her full transformation. But, she was waiting to finish the surgery before she did the paperwork.” He sounded dull, lifeless, like he’d heard this story end badly before. “Her real name was Adam Rose.”

  Ray would be able to tell her if Aisling’s transformation from man to woman was complete or not. She had breast implants, at least, which made her a transsexual, not just a queen cross dressing for the fun and excitement of it. No need to fish for that information here. And, not like it mattered. Or, did it? There was enough hate crime against the LGBTQ community in Silver City—everywhere, for that matter—it was possible this murder was the result of sheer idiocy. But the symbols carved into the dancer’s flesh told Gerri there had to be more to this story.

  “Was there anyone you can think of who might have wanted to hurt Aisling?” An obvious question, but one Gerri liked to ask anyway. Not just for the obvious, either. There were times when those she interrogated showed signs of guilt when confronted so directly. They might not understand just how much they gave up with their facial expressions, body language, even the words they chose to answer.

  In this case, Salvador’s reticence wasn’t guilt of murder, but of naming names. She could see it in the way his shoulders slumped, in how he looked away for a moment, lips tightening before his tongue ran over them.

  “Just the usual rivalries.” Desperate need for her to believe him surfaced in his watery green eyes as he met hers again. “Nothing that would lead to murder.”

  “Please, let me be the judge of that.” Gerri fished out her notebook from her jacket pocket, her favorite pen—a gift from her mother—catching the light on the silver barrel. “Names?”

  “Just one.” Salvador slumped lower. “But Roxy wouldn’t hurt Aisling, not physically. I’m sure of it.”

  “Roxy has a real name?” Gerri pushed, soft but insistent. The faint tingle of the thrill of the hunt washed away her irritation with the humidity still clinging to her even in the AC of this place, her anger at Jackson, her worry about what Kinsey might find. This was what she was born to do.

  “Thomas Yates.” Gerri saw the regret on Salvador’s face the moment he gave up the name, how he turned to meet the eyes of the young man behind the bar with a twitch of guilt. The bartended didn’t respond, seemingly lost in his own grief. Without that support to hold him back, Salvador gave in to Gerri completely. “I’ll get you her address.”

  She let Salvador go, small, hunched body bent in sorrow, edging closer to the bar as the young man stared at the counter in front of him, seemingly in a daze of emotions. She watched him a long moment before setting her pen on the bar, the rattle of it a conscious focus breaker. When he looked up, his pale gray eyes were full of tears.

  A horrible weight lived inside him, but was it guilt? She did her best to remain impartial as she asked her next question.

  “Have you worked here long?”

  He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand and nodded. “A year,” he said, deep voice cracking with stress. “Curtis Alexander.” His words hesitated on the “c” and the “x”, suggesting a stutter. Mild, but enough of a marker his stress was honest.

  “You were friends with the victim?” Gerri understood how hard it was to be faced with these questions, underneath it all. This part of her job, the pressure on the victim’s family, friends, associates, so soon after a death. And yet, as necessary as breathing if she wanted to catch the killer. As the tingle of reveal grew in strength, she didn’t care how he felt, even about the dead dancer in the alley. All she wanted was to find who murdered Aisling. But, she was very good at pretending.

  She had to be.

  Again Curtis nodded. “Aisling was…” he looked away, jaw jumping, throat working. “She was really special.”

  Gerri’s mind sighed. Was he in love with her? Maybe. Motive?

  Maybe.

  Next question, same one as before. “Can you think of anyone besides Roxy who might want to hurt her?”

  Curtis shrugged, met her eyes with his clear gaze. Not a trace of guilt. Just the most sadness she’d ever seen in anyone. Enough to crack her own heart and break the bubble of excitement into pieces.

  “She had someone bugging her last year,” he said. “When I first started working here. But
she never said who and I think it stopped because she wasn’t stressed over it anymore.”

  “Bugging her how?” Gerri hoped focusing on the question would help him ease away from his sorrow. But, she could tell when she asked, she was only making things worse.

  “She wouldn’t talk about it.” Curtis’s lower lip trembled. “Just said some assholes were making her life miserable but refused to tell me who.” Gerri had the impression if Curtis knew, he’d have done something about it.

  A question for Roxy, maybe?

  Salvador shuffled his way from the back of the club, returning to hand Gerri a piece of paper. His tall, narrow handwriting was barely legible, but she tucked the address into her notebook anyway with a nod of thanks.

  “Did you know the person who was troubling Aisling last year?” Salvador glanced at Curtis but shrugged.

  “The girls keep to themselves,” he said. “They don’t tell this old queen anything anymore.” He muffled a sob behind one hand.

  Not much she could say to that.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Gerri said, with plans to fully investigate both men before twenty-four hours was up. For now, the trail led elsewhere.

  ***

  INT. – SILVER CITY COLLEGE – AFTERNOON

  Kinsey hunched over her keyboard, laptop glare giving her a headache, but she barely noticed past the buzz of far too much coffee. A cold, absent sip from her mug made her splutter and drove her back, computer chair making a crunching noise as one of the wheels crushed a fallen potato chip she’d lost track of the night before.

  Ignoring the clutter surrounding her as though it was normal to have giant piles of books and boxes of artifacts mixed with piles of unmarked papers stuffed into every nook and cranny of her small office, Kinsey stood and stretched out her tight lower back muscles, yawning as her mind wound around what she’d learned.

  Most of the symbols resembled ones she knew, ancient etchings from Egypt and even as far back as Mesopotamia. But, though she was able to connect them to a few pagan religions tied to both cultures, there were enough differences in the subtle nuances she wasn’t confident enough yet to share translations with Gerri.

  The empty coffee pot’s charred bottom made her wince as she rattled through her small cabinet for a new filter. She’d been accused of being absent minded and hated the thought. Though she had to admit, as she filled the reservoir from a mostly-full bottle of spring water, she was often guilty of ignoring the mundane for the extraordinary.

  Who wouldn’t? Kinsey’s whole body shivered as she caught herself grinning at the dripping java, the smell about driving her mad as she tapped one foot in impatience, both in anticipation of the fresh coffee and of getting back to her research. Dr. Gant had told her long ago he’d never met anyone so clearly suited to the job than her and Kinsey had to agree.

  She lived, ate, breathed, slept the hunt of information, the quiet and stealthy dig into why humans did what they did. What drove societies to flourish and collapse in sometimes grandiose ways while others sagged in slow decline. But, the best part was the connection to those things she couldn’t explain.

  Kinsey’s fingers smarted as a drip of hot coffee scalded over the rim of her mug. With a soft curse, she licked them clean, weaving her expert way around the mess, returning to sit crossed-legged on her well-worn office chair. Two or three ginger sips and she was gulping the hot liquid while she paged through the report she’d uncovered.

  Regardless of her doubts on the complete translations, Gerri wasn’t going to like what Kinsey had to tell her, no matter how she broached the topic. She sighed and sat back from yet another close approximation of “paranormal”, “undead”, “demon” and “life after death” to savor what remained of her coffee. Gerri’s reticence wasn’t exactly a shock. Ever since the three friends renewed their relationships, rediscovering each other here in Silver City after almost a decade apart, the reason for their return to friendship had made Gerri uncomfortable. Kinsey’s natural curiosity didn’t see a problem with the possibility there were paranormal and/or supernatural happenings that literally could not be explained by logic and science. Though, she was enough of a trained mind to understand eventually even the most abnormal would be dissected and revealed through physics or chemistry. The loss of Dr. Gant to mysterious circumstances—his death in her arms proof enough to her he was more than he first appeared—led Kinsey not only to find the girls again, but awakened her long-forgotten memories of being afraid of “monsters” when she was a little girl.

  His eyes. Most of all she remembered his eyes and how they’d gone from his pale blue to something so unworldly she wasn’t sure she saw the change until he expired, body crumbling to dust as he did.

  Any other person might have found a way to explain it, to forget or make excuses. But he taught her better than that. He'd begged her with those strange, star-speckled eyes at the end, to understand. He’d taught her to believe, to question but trust. And, in that moment of his loss, she saw enough to prove to her there was much more to evolution than what modern science was willing to admit.

  And yet, it frustrated her Gerri was so stubborn about accepting there might actually be a paranormal explanation. Ray, at least, was a bit more open minded. Kinsey sighed into her coffee, the last trails of steam rising from the bottom of her cup. She knew both of them had seen things, too. Ray alluded to as much, about the night Gerri’s partner, Joe Mutch, died. Gerri claimed it was a drug dealer. But Ray’s version of the story involved something that made her shudder and get goosebumps.

  No matter what happened, there was no way for Gerri to deny this clear evidence carved into the flesh of a transsexual dancer. She might not like it, may fight against it, but, in the end, they all knew the truth.

  Paranormal creatures were real. And it was a very good possibility one of them killed Aisling.

  Her door opened without preamble. Kinsey looked up to Gerri’s entry and caught herself wincing. The detective looked angry, green eyes shadowed, long, red hair catching the afternoon sun coming in through the window, lighting her up like she was on fire. Kinsey always equated her tall, broad shouldered friend with an Amazon, a mighty warrior woman and, though Gerri would never know it, sometimes pictured her in armor with a sword in one hand and a shield strapped to her other. Kinsey had been nerdy enough in high school to be a fan of role playing games, though was pretty sure if she ever told Gerri, she would think Kinsey was a weirdo.

  As if she didn’t already.

  Gerri pushed aside a pile of books and perched herself on the edge of the chair across from Kinsey’s desk, resting her elbows on a stack of papers Kinsey still hadn’t found time to grade. She caught a glimpse of Gerri’s badge and gun through her open jacket as the redhead spoke.

  “Think a homicide detective can get away with murder?” She had a lovely, deep voice, the kind of timbre Kinsey associated with blues singers and luscious black women. It suited her perfectly.

  Kinsey grinned , setting aside her mug with some regret her coffee was already gone. “If anyone could,” she said. “I take it the new guy isn’t working out?”

  “How’d you guess?” Gerri groaned and leaned back, long body stretching out as best it could in the tight space. She didn’t seem all that concerned she was using leather-bound books for a backrest. Kinsey winced at the thought of Gerri’s weight crushing her precious babies. “He’s going to turn up dead. Or something.”

  “I didn’t hear you say that.” Kinsey set aside her glasses, suddenly tired. She could go a long time on endless draughts of caffeine, but she’d finally reached her limit. Her fingers rubbed circles on her temples as she exhaled in preparation for the next phase of their conversation. “Just as long as you don’t add me to the list of people you want to kill,” she said. “Ready for weird?”

  Gerri’s whole demeanor changed. Kinsey watched with interest as she shifted from casual confidence to a visible withdrawal. She sat up straighter, brow coming together, the darkness in her eyes sparkin
g something Kinsey didn’t think was fear, per se, but came close. What was Gerri’s issue? She was a detective. She should be just as curious as Kinsey about these things. Maybe there was more to the redhead’s encounter with the paranormal than Gerri was telling her.

  “Hit me,” Gerri said.

  Kinsey spun her laptop sideways, hoping the visuals might be enough to convince Gerri she wasn’t full of crap. “So far, I’ve managed to confidently translate only two of the six symbols.” She handed Gerri the printouts she’d made of the photos from the crime scene. Gerri compared them to the documents Kinsey showed her on her screen. “You see the shape is right, but the accent is different.” One looked like an empty pot with waves over the top. But the symbol Kinsey had located had straight lines, not wavy ones. “I know it looks subtle, but it skews the meaning entirely, depending on what culture this came from.” She’d found three separate social groups who used a similar image, though all three seemed to use it to denote life and the loss of soul. “The only one I can be definitive about is this one.” A single line curved from a curl at the right, dipping down into a long, narrow line to a point then back up again, finishing with another curl. “This image, in all cultures I could find who used it, means not human.”

  Gerri twitched. “Like, animal?”

  Kinsey’s irritation showed, she was sure of it. “No, Ger,” she said. “As in more than human. Paranormal.”

  Gerri’s hand tightened on the page, jaw jumping, but she nodded.

  “Keep going.”

  Kinsey sat back, shrugging, the tingling across her forehead, so familiar in times when she needed others to listen to her, forming a band around her head. Just a little nudge, a tiny push toward her way of thinking… Kinsey jerked herself free, sitting up straighter, as Gerri’s eyes tightened around the edges. The sigh of tension in her head, denied its target, turned into a headache. “Now, we could be dealing with some kind of ancient cult.” That thought had crossed her mind, helped distract her from the lingering effects of her freaky talent. “One that believes paranormals are real.” From the way Gerri uncoiled, Kinsey knew she’d diffused her anxiety at least a little. But she wasn’t sure handing Gerri an out like that was the best course of action. So easy, just to nudge her… Kinsey tightened her hands into fists in her lap. This had to be up to Gerri. “If that’s the case, this could be a hate crime. Or, someone thought Aisling was a paranormal and killed her for it, warding her body with symbols to keep her tainted soul from returning to haunt the living.” Kinsey almost grinned to herself. She liked that turn of phrase and had to remember to write it down to use in her next book.