Blood on the Tracks (28 page)

But I always stopped short of testing myself in full. I never earned straight As. Never took first place in anything. I refused to push myself because pushing myself and failing would be unforgivable. If I failed as my parents had failed, I’d have nothing.

I’d
be
nothing. I’d be like them.

Meanwhile, buried inside, that wounded child lurked.

I hadn’t joined the Marines and the railway police out of courage. I’d joined out of a desire for security and stability. I’d wanted someone else to order and organize my life. To think for me and plan for me and tell me when I needed to be brave and when I could relax. I was the obedient soldier who did whatever she was told and never crossed the line until the Sir asked for my help. The men and women around me, the patriotic, high-energy, sometimes fearless Marines and police I worked with every day, proved to me that I was no warrior. But I played the part well. They never knew that inside I was still a thirteen-year-old girl filled with sound and fury.

Then Elise’s murder landed in my lap.

Painfully, I rolled onto my side. Clyde groaned but didn’t waken.

At the Black Egg, I’d been determined to find a way to prove that Gentry was innocent. Determined to find Elise’s killer. But Sarge’s arrival in my home had shattered me all over again.

Now I was at a crossroads. I had to choose between breaking the rules or guarding them. Between playing it safe and maybe playing it wrong. The hours with Cohen had made me ask how long I could keep running from what lay in my heart, keep hiding from the dark things that played in my head. Keep holding myself back.

I felt like Jekyll and Hyde. Simultaneously the person who always colored inside the lines and the monster who tore them apart.

Which one was I now?

I wrapped an arm around Clyde, buried my face in his warm fur.

It was safer to run. Running was how you kept the monster chained and quiet. Freeing the monster might be braver and more honest. But it could also get you and the people around you killed.

I should burn the pages with Gentry’s name on them, claim ignorance of their theft, leave Melody and Alfred Merkel and even Liz to the Denver PD. Forget about Habbaniyah and Malik and go back to being a railway cop. Correction—to being a
lazy
railway cop. Keep the bar low. Keep the monster drunk on whiskey, high on drugs, soothed by routine.

It was safer that way.

And safe was all that thirteen-year-old girl had ever wanted.

Sometime later, I fell into the sleep of the dead. A sleep so deep and heavy that I might have been plucked from the world and banished into a dark abyss. I did not dream but once.

In the single dream, the ghost who had been at Sarge’s apartment, the CIA spook named Dalton, came to me. With him was a young black girl, her clothes torn and bloodied, her body battered. Dalton took her hand and drew her forward until she stood in front of him. He gave her a gentle push in my direction, nodded at me, and vanished.

There would be time for him later, he seemed to say. First, this.

The dream-Jazmine studied my face, her expression grievous, her brow tight. As if she’d hoped to find that I measured up but instead had been disappointed. I shivered under her scrutiny, forced myself to hold her gaze. Did she see the monster and my best self? Did she see how I kept them both at bay so that I was nothing but middling?

At last she held out her arms, palms turned up in plea. Maybe I was all she had. Maybe middling would have to do.

The abyss dropped deeper, and I went with it. Safe for a time in that cocoon of darkness.

Just like I’d always wanted.

I awoke hours later with a clear mind.

I opened my eyes. The bedside clock ticked gently in the late-morning quiet of Gentry’s bedroom. A murmur of voices came from beyond the door. Down the street, a neighbor shoveled snow, the metal scraping on the concrete. Cold breathed at the window. A thin line of sunlight fell through the gap in the curtains and set about capturing dust motes.

Jazmine Brown. Liz Weber. And somewhere, Malik. These children had not asked to be victims any more than I had when I was their age. It was just the luck of the draw that we’d pulled the short straws of poverty and violence instead of silver spoons and college trust funds.

My job—first as a Marine and now as a cop—was to be their voice. To stand up for them when they couldn’t stand on their own. Whether that took my best self or my worst didn’t really matter. Just so long as I got the job done.

Tentatively, I stretched one leg. Got one hell of a zinger back in return. Stretched the other. My body was a thrumming piano wire of pain. Made the job a little harder. But Marines love harder.

I relaxed my legs and groaned. Clyde lifted his head and regarded me with solemn eyes. I forced myself onto my elbows.

“Time to move out, Marine,” I told him.

He hopped off the bed and went to stand by the door.

I slid out of bed and found my jeans and sweater cleaned and folded on a chair. I dressed as quickly as I could, given there wasn’t an inch of flesh that hadn’t been punched, jabbed, or scraped. I strapped on my duty belt and thigh holster then braided my hair and snugged it under my railway cap. Just as I finished, a knock came and Ellen Ann opened the door.

“Nap do you good, Sydney Rose?”

“It did,” I said. “I’m feeling stronger.”

A little light came into her eyes. Maybe she’d meant for me to hear her earlier words, hoped that calling me middling would piss me off enough to light a fire. No one had ever called Ellen Ann a fool.

“That’s good,” she said. “There’s a woman here. Says she has something for you.”

C
HAPTER
23

- Do you believe in God, Corporal Parnell?

- Sure. I just don’t like Him much. And I don’t trust Him at all.

—Kuwait, conversation with the Marine chaplain.

Sherri Kane, Jeremy Kane’s pretty, pregnant wife, was not who I’d expected or hoped for. But I had to give her credit for finding me.

Dressed in a navy and white striped sweater, maternity jeans, and fur-topped snow boots, she sat in the wingback chair in Ellen Ann’s living room. Knees and ankles together, legs tucked gracefully to one side. Her face was fresh and clean. Her hair, loosed from its ponytail, fell in a shining wave over her shoulder.

As Clyde and I entered the room, Sherri took in my wounded face and faltering gait. An unreadable expression flitted across her features. Satisfaction?

Maybe I was too harsh.

“Get you anything?” Ellen Ann asked me. She’d already brought tea for Sherri.

“I’m good.”

She patted my shoulder, probably figuring I needed bolstering in the face of my visitor’s wholesome beauty. After she left, I turned to Sherri. “What can I do for you?”

She set down her tea. “I am sorry to just show up at your uncle’s house,” she said. “But I have Tucks’s beads. I tried calling the number on the card you gave me, but you didn’t answer.”

I didn’t bother correcting her on my relationship with Nik. I pulled out my phone. Three calls from an unknown number. I really had been in the abyss.

“I called the railroad,” Sherri went on, “told the man who picked up that I needed to see you. They gave me your uncle’s name and number, and I figured out the address. When no one answered, I decided to drive over. I’ve made the beads, like Tucks asked. Now I want them off my hands.”

Efficient. I remembered.

I lowered myself onto the chair catty-corner to Sherri’s, next to a recently closed window where a chill still hung. Clyde stood next to me, tail straight. Probably he’d inhaled a snoutful of Ogre’s scent. I wondered if he felt about Sherri’s dog the way I felt about Sherri.

“Would you like me to take the beads to him?” I asked.

“Yes.” Her voice was crisp. She rummaged through the purse in her lap. “You can do that, can’t you?”

“Did you know he’s in the hospital? He collapsed in his cell.”

Her hand paused. “Is he going to be all right?”

“Too soon to tell. But I’ll make sure he knows about the beads, once he’s awake. I’m sure he’ll be grateful to know you care.”

She pulled out a drawstring bag. Wooden beads clicked inside. “You must think I just want to put all of this behind me.”

“Never crossed my mind.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she handed over the bag. “Please tell him we’re thinking about him.”

“I will.”

She snapped her purse closed. “I should get going. I need to pick up Haley.”

For a moment, I considered Sherri as a killer. She hated Elise, who had replaced her as the golden girl. A woman’s choice of weapons is often poison, and Elise had been drugged before she died. Maybe the knife work was to mislead.

But I just as quickly dismissed the idea. The knife was too hands-on and messy for someone like Sherri, no matter how clever a cover-up it might have seemed. In Sherri’s world, anger amounted to a door slam or maybe a burnt chicken. Not murder.

“Just one more thing, Mrs. Kane,” I said. “When I was at your house, you mentioned that Elise was digging up dirt. You said you didn’t know what kind of things she was looking for. But you’re obviously a smart woman. And I’m guessing you’re an astute observer of people.”

Unimpressed by my flattery, Sherri sighed and glanced at her watch.

“So I’m a little surprised,” I went on, “that you have no inkling what Elise might have been looking into. Surely she said something. Maybe you even asked her about it.”

“Life can be bleak, Special Agent Parnell. I try not to bring in any more unpleasantness than I have to. But Elise did talk to me a little. If you think it will help, she said something to me at dinner one night. That she was dealing with a gang of skinheads.”

If I was hoping for a new angle to pursue, I was disappointed. “What about them?”

“Elise was upset because they were coming around again. Hurting ‘her’ people, she said. There was one in particular she talked about. Blade, I think. Or Whip. Pistol, maybe. I don’t remember.”

I rose. “Can you wait just a moment? I have something to show you.”

“I—”

“I’ll be right back.”

To encourage Sherri to wait, I gave Clyde the stay command. I found my bag near the front door and pulled out the sketch of Alfred Merkel.

I handed the paper over as I resumed my seat. “You ever see this man around?”

She took the sketch. Gave a startled little “Oh!”

I waited.

“Oh, my heavens, is he a criminal?”

“He’s a neo-Nazi. You can decide if that makes him a criminal. You recognize him?”

“I made hobo beads for him. Last summer. I had a booth at a craft fair at Globeville Landing Park. He came up and admired the beads I had on display, but he didn’t want any of those.”

“What did he want?”

The expression on her face was a mixture of bemusement and disgust. “He wanted love beads. Hearts. Doves. The word ‘Always.’ As a gift, he said. I remember because it was so odd. This terrifying man wanting love beads.”

“Did he say who they were for?”

She shook her head. “I took down his order, and he told me where to send them. Then he threw the money on the table and ran off. I saw him later with a woman and a group of men with tattoos like his. He was carrying a little girl.”

“What did the woman look like?”

“Heavyset, but pretty. Dirty blond hair.”

“Tattoos?”

“No.” She shook her head, remembering. “I figured he took off so quickly because he didn’t want his buddies to know about the beads.”

Was this why Melody stayed with him? Because after he beat her, he tried to make up for it by giving her gifts?

“Where did he want you to send them?” I asked.

“It was a house. Or I guess it was. I can’t remember the street.”

I told her Melody’s address, but Sherri shook her head. “I don’t think so. It wasn’t—I don’t think it was in Denver.”

“Mrs. Kane, I need that address. It’s important. The woman and little girl you saw might be in danger.”

“From whoever killed Elise?” Her eyes went wide. “You mean
he’s
Elise’s killer? That’s why you have a sketch of him? You’re saying that I made beads for a murderer?”

I let my silence speak for itself.

She went white beneath her delicate sprinkling of freckles. “The address definitely wasn’t in Denver. It was one of those little towns out east. Wiggins, maybe. Yes, I think it was Wiggins. I remember wondering why anyone would live in a place like that where there’s just nothing.” She stared at me with huge eyes. “Oh, my God.”

Roald Hoffreider had seen Alfred Merkel in a biker bar in a little town east of Denver. Wiggins was sixty-six miles out of Denver, right on a line run by Denver Pacific.

“Did I help?” Sherri asked.

“You helped a lot, Mrs. Kane.”

After Sherri left, I used Nik’s computer to search for an address belonging to any Merkels in Wiggins, Colorado. Nothing. I scanned the records of other small towns in case Sherri was wrong about the location. Brush. Fort Morgan. Points further east.

Nothing.

I looked at Clyde. “You’re a tracker dog. Where does that son of a bitch go to ground?”

Clyde pricked his ears but had nothing to offer.

Today was February 21. Ten years to the day that Jazmine had gone missing. I stared out the window for a few minutes, thinking about Gentry and where he might be. For the heck of it, I looked online for milestones relating to the rise of Nazism.

Two things popped out. In February 1920, the German Workers Party became the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party. Otherwise known as the Nazi party.

Then in February of 1933, civil rights in Germany were suspended, and the Nazi party was given emergency powers. The long, slow roll to genocide began.

For the first time I wondered if Jazmine’s disappearance hadn’t been a simple act of opportunity. Maybe the timing had been more significant.

I flashed to the swastika I’d seen on Nik’s porch when I brought the news about Elise. The vandalized welcome mat. Had Alfred Merkel and the Royer Boys been sending Gentry a warning to keep silent? Had Gentry, with the anniversary approaching, given Merkel a reason to think he was going to go to the police with what he knew? Had he, along with Thomas Brown, been working with Elise?

Those two always had something to jabber about lately, seems like
, Nik had told me.

Had the Royer Boys taken Gentry to silence him? Just as they’d silenced Elise?

I jumped to my feet and ran into the hallway. “Nik!”

Grams looked out from the kitchen. “What are you hollering about, Sydney Rose?”

“Where’s Nik?”

“He’s gone.”

“What do you mean?” I followed her back into the kitchen. “Where?”

“You think he’d be bothered to tell us?” She picked up a knife and continued to chop beets. “Walked out like he had the devil on his back. Left his phone, too. Said he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

“Damn it. He’s gone after the Royer Boys. He’s going to get himself killed.”

Grams lowered the knife and turned to me.

“What are you talking about, Sydney Rose?”

“Elise was trying to get those boys to come clean about something they’d done. I think Gentry was helping her. That’s why someone spray-painted that swastika on Nik and Ellen Ann’s porch. As a warning to Gentry to stay quiet.”

“Elise said she was working with skinheads,” she said. “And Gentry was helping her. I thought she was teaching them scripture, taking Gentry along as a bodyguard.”

“Does Nik know how to find them?”

“The Royer Boys? It’s been years, Sydney Rose. Those boys are long gone from these parts.” She narrowed her eyes in sudden understanding. “You’re saying they’re back? Is this about that little girl disappeared all those years ago?”

I spun on my heel, headed toward the front door.

“Nik calls or comes home,” I said over my shoulder, “you tell him I’ve gone to Wiggins.”

Grams followed me to the front door. Outside, flurries spit from a leaden sky. Across the street, a neighbor worked a snowblower. I pushed my feet into my boots.

“We couldn’t get your coat clean.” Grams opened the closet door and pulled out a black wool coat, a hat, and a pair of gloves. “Ellen Ann says for you to use these.”

I removed my railway hat, hung it on a hook near the door, and pulled on the stocking cap. Took the gloves and tucked them in the coat pocket. “Tell her thanks.”

“Find her killer, Sydney Rose. Do what you have to do. And find Gentry and Nik. Bring those fools home.”

“I will.” Thinking of what Ellen Ann had said outside the bedroom door earlier, I blurted, “I’m not weak, Grams.”

She squinted up at me through still-bright eyes, her sinewy body as solid and reliable as the oak she resembled. Years ago, when I was a child, she would take me on long walks in the woods. Out there, among the pines and aspens of the higher mountains, her eyes held a leap of wildness in them, as if she carried some elemental magic. I was a little afraid of her.

“You have both your father and mother inside you,” she said to me now. “And Lord knows they had their share of weakness. But you’re different. When the crap they pulled taught you to hold back, I just figured you’d step into yourself when you were ready.” She tucked a strand of hair under my cap. “Leastways, that’s what I thought until that damn war came along and took something bright and strong out of you. Maybe it’s time to get it back.”

“What if I’m like my ma, Grams?” I thought of Sarge’s blood in my kitchen. Thought of Wallace Cooper and my mother, arguing by the train before the law said she pushed him. “What if something terrible happens when I stop holding back?”

“Could be your worst self is also your best.” Gently, she pressed her palm to my heart, bringing both warmth and pain. “Maybe you shouldn’t fear so much what you got inside.”

I laid my hand on hers. She twined her fingers through mine and placed her head on my shoulder. I closed my eyes and breathed in her scent, the smell of mysterious things gone quiet with age. Like an old bear, hibernating under winter’s depths.

Then she stepped away, and the moment passed.

“Be tough out there,” she said.

She held my coat open. Painfully I twisted to slide my right arm into the sleeve and then my left. My wrist caught on the cuff, and a spark of pain radiated out from my elbow.

And at that very moment, thinking only of a coat, I had it.

Melody Weber.