Criminal Past Read online

  Hazard’s eyes cut across Somers’s shoulder, and his lips pulled back from his teeth. Mikey Grames had changed in the ten months since Hazard had first arrived in Wahredua, and that change hadn’t been for the better. For a moment, though, that didn’t matter. What Hazard saw was the past: Mikey Grames, tall and tubby and nasty enough that nobody teased him about the tub. Mikey Grames dragging down Hazard’s shorts in P.E. and explaining, in an innocent voice, that he was only checking to see if Hazard really did have a puss or if he just used his ass. Mikey Grames kicking Hazard across the locker room tiles like he was playing air hockey, kicking until Hazard pissed blood for a week. Mikey Grames drawing a knife while Hugo Perry and Somers held Hazard’s arms, and Grames slicing through cotton first and then skin, incising three clear lines low on Hazard’s waist, the scars still shiny today, where Grames had left a blocky G incomplete.

  Hazard dragged himself out of the past. Hugo Perry was dead. Somers was—well, he was Somers. He was different. He was better. He was Hazard’s. That only left Mikey Grames, and Grames had grown old. He was the same age as Hazard and Somers, but he looked ten years older. The tub around his middle had melted away, burned off with meth and crack and God only knew what else. Hard living had made a ruin of Grames’s face, and the rotten sinkhole of his mouth collapsed inwards. He still had his hair, lank and yellow and brushing his shoulders, and he still looked strong. Even in his carnie get-up, black trousers and a Hawaiian print shirt, he looked like he had the wiry strength that didn’t leave most drug addicts until the very end. He was grinning now, the brown stumps of his teeth visible in the morning light.

  “Faggots,” he hawked again. “Ladies and gentlemen, step right up. Ten dollars a ticket.”

  “Just ignore him,” Somers said. “He’s a tweaker; he’s not worth your time.”

  They were too far off for Grames to have heard Somers, but his grin widened, and he stepped to one side and swept out an arm, displaying the tent behind him. At the back, figurines painted like stereotypical Native American warriors rolled along a circulating track, while a row of air rifles sat at the front. It was a shooting game, and Grames was running it.

  “You’re pretty good with balls, aren’t you, Emery? Come on over and handle these.” He tugged at his crotch.

  “Leave it,” Somers said. “I’ll get Evie and we’ll keep going.”

  “We’re having a nice day,” Hazard said, sidestepping Somers.

  “Leave it, Ree.”

  “A really nice day. A family day. Why would I let a piece of shit ruin it now?”

  “Ree.”

  Mikey Grames stayed right where he was, bold as fucking brass, as Hazard advanced on him, but his breathing quickened, and he ran his tongue around and around the decaying rim of teeth.

  “You wanted my attention.”

  “You ain’t going to do nothing.”

  “The last time I saw you, I put you on the ground. Last time I saw you, I could have done a lot worse.”

  “But I know you now. That’s right. I watched you. I know you ain’t nothing but a pussy. Got your little boy pussy stretched around Somers’s cock, but that’s the only thing different about you now. You prance around town. You think you’re big shit. But you’re still a pussy boy who needs a man to put him in his place.”

  “What am I going to find if I pat you down? Are you dealing, Mikey? That’d be pretty stupid, dealing at the county fair with all those deputies around. It’d be pretty stupid to carry your own product. But you know what, Mikey? I think you’re stupid. I think you’ve smoked your own shit too long. Should I find out if I’m right?”

  Grames’s rapid breathing carried the stench of his rotting teeth, but he puffed up like a bantam and took a step. “Why don’t you prove it? Prove you’re not still a pussy who needs a man’s cock up inside him. Prove it. Go on. Prove it. Prove you’re not just a cum-rag for every trucker that drives within ten miles of town. Prove it. Hit me. Go on. Prove it.” Grames’s hand slapped down hard on Hazard’s bad arm, and Hazard had to bite back a yell. “Yeah, you little bitch, I know all about you. You can’t even jerk your boyfriend off anymore, can you? Can’t even wipe your own ass after he drops a load in you. You know what I ought to do? I ought to get your boy and drag him out to the bluffs. I’ll take you too. I’ll let you watch the whole thing, and when you’re done, you’ll know what I did to two of your fucktoys: Somers, and that faggot back in high school. What was his name?”

  The front of Hazard’s mind was wiped clean. White. A perfect, white rectangle of light and heat that took up his whole field of vision. A white envelope. And inside the envelope were pictures that Hazard could never unsee. The pictures of Jeff Langham. Jeff, who had loved Hazard. Jeff, who had been brave. Jeff, who had slid a shotgun into his broken, bloody mouth after Grames finished with him and that had been his way out of Wahredua.

  Hazard didn’t even realize he’d taken a swing. The punch was clumsy; it was twenty-years of anger breaking through a shitty dam. He knew, even as he followed through, that he’d left himself open, and when Mikey Grames danced to one side and clipped Hazard in the neck, the only surprise was that the little tweaker could move that fast. Hazard stumbled, hand at his throat, choking and trying not to empty his stomach.

  “Ree, hey, can you breathe?”

  Hazard waved Somers away, forcing himself to straighten, even as he continued to choke for air.

  “Well, well, well,” Grames said. “You came running right over. Wanted to make sure your prize pussy doesn’t get damaged?”

  “Long time no see, Mikey,” Somers said.

  “I should have known you were a faggot.”

  “I should have let you know. That was my bad. In case you missed the announcement, though, I’ll give you the short version: turns out, I’m a big old cocksucker.” Somers’s voice still had that easy, friendly tone he took with just about everyone. “Mikey, we’re going to walk away right now. And if I see you again, even if I see your little cockroach head out of the corner of my eye, I’m going to come down on you so hard there won’t be enough left of you to fill a can of cat food. You understand me?”

  “He swung first,” Grames said, his voice suddenly injured and whining. “You saw him. He swung—”

  “Nah. That bullshit’s done. This isn’t high school anymore, and you can’t bitch your way out of trouble. I’m not a dirty cop. I don’t like dirty cops. But I’ll fucking bury you in pieces if I see you again.” All this, Somers said like he was shooting the breeze, like he could clap Mikey on the shoulder and still buy him a beer. “You understand me?”

  Grames curved at the shoulders, his posture twisted and hunched and servile.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “Yes. Yes, I fucking understand you, you fucking cocksucking faggot.”

  “Good. I just wanted to make sure. Have a good life, Mikey. Glad you grew up so nice.”

  And without waiting for an answer, Somers spun Hazard around and nudged him away from the shooting game. Hazard coughed again, and the worst of the spasms in his throat eased. Down the stretch of the midway, the sheriff and Weiss were watching them, although neither made a move to help. Hazard stood as straight as he could and cast a backward glance at Grames, who sighted down one of the air rifles at them. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t, not with two deputies right there, not with so many witnesses, not when the pellet would just leave a welt—not worth the trouble of shooting a cop, Hazard guessed. Mikey was still sighting down the air rifle, though, and his face mottled with red.

  “I could have handled that.”

  “Good Lord,” Somers said, leaning over the rope fence to collect Evie, who screamed and kicked. “Say thank you.”

  “No,” Hazard said, “I—”

  “No,” Evie shouted at the same time, flailing her legs. “I play!”

  Hazard froze with his mouth open.

  “Yep,” Somers said, slinging Evie over his shoulder and bouncing
her as he turned back towards the fairground gates. “Sometimes you sound exactly like her.”

  “I don’t sound exactly like her.”

  Somers rolled his eyes.

  “I don’t think,” Hazard muttered.

  “Let’s get out of here before you remember how to throw a punch.”

  They passed Grames from a distance, and he was sighting down the air rifle at them like he might take a shot. But he didn’t do anything except at the very end, when Hazard threw a last look back, and then Grames smiled: a brown smile like he’d been chewing shit, and all the tension oozed out of him, and he gave Hazard a cocky wave before he faced the passersby and hawked his game again.

  What was that about, Hazard wondered. What was Mikey Grames playing at? His anger and disgust with Hazard had seemed real enough, but at the end, that transformation had been so quick and complete that it made his earlier hatred look like a lie. But why? Why pretend to hate Hazard only to provoke him? And why did he look so damn happy at having succeeded? The envelopes? Were those Mikey?

  At the edge of the fairgrounds, Somers’s phone rang, and he hooked it from his pocket and spoke quietly into it for a pair of minutes. When he’d finished, he tossed Evie, tickled her, and said, “We’ve got to get you back to Mom.”

  “Why?” Hazard asked. “What’s happened?”

  “Chief Cravens just called. She wants us to stop a murder.”

  DROPPING OFF EVIE WASN'T as easy as it sounded. Cora Malsho—who had been Cora Somerset for a long time—had a job as a designer. It was freelance work, mostly for a company in KC, and it left her with relatively little free time. Almost nonexistent free time, in fact. In the end, they had to take Evie to her preschool.

  “I don’t like leaving her there,” Hazard said.

  “You threw a punch and ruined our day. You don’t get a say.”

  “Kids need more one on one time. Kids need positive reinforcement from adults in their life. They need—”

  “Ree?”

  “I was watching this documentary on child development, and they said—”

  “Ree, sweetie?”

  “I’m trying to tell you something.”

  “I know, babe. Shut up.”

  “What?”

  “Shut up. Nobody wants Evie to be in preschool all day. Do you have a better idea?”

  Hazard decided he should re-watch the documentary before he answered.

  They headed back to the Wahredua Police Station. Originally, the building had been a Catholic school, and traces of its youth still survived: although most of the ornamental religious stonework had been removed, rising costs and worker injuries had caused the iconoclastic destruction to stop before it was completely finished. Above the main doors, for example, most of a frieze remained, displaying an angel conquering a devil. Only even that wasn’t quite right, because some fool with a chisel had managed to knock off most of the angel’s spear, and from the right angle now it looked like the angel was just tickling the devil, and the devil was having one hell of a time.

  Inside, the place was as it always was. The smell of coffee stained the building permanently, and over the hum of voices, fax machines screeched and whirred. A few locals sat in the lobby, waiting to speak to an officer, while the oldest police officer in the department presided over the front desk. Jim Murray’s nose hairs grew almost to his chin, and he had to be close to eighty, but he didn’t miss much. He also didn’t like Hazard much, and when he noticed the two detectives, he gave his newspaper a vigorous shake. Beyond Murray, the building opened up, and a bullpen had been erected to corral the desks. Jonny Moraes, a uniformed officer, perched on the edge of one desk, laughing as his partner, the red-headed Patrick Foley, swore at a form he was trying to fill out. Moraes gave Hazard and Somers a thumbs-up and then pointed out another mistake on Foley’s form. Foley swore and ripped up the paper.

  “Heard you got your ass handed to you,” Foley said when he noticed Hazard.

  Hazard ignored him.

  “Why the fuck didn’t you lay out Grames? A piece of shit like that, you outta go after him.”

  “Word travels fast,” Somers muttered.

  “Is it true you tried to hit him and he got you in the throat? That’s assault on a peace officer. That’s what I’d call it.”

  “Foley, why don’t you worry about spelling your name right? We’ll worry about Mikey Grames.”

  Foley’s face turned as red as his hair. He looked like he might say more, but Moraes muttered something, and Foley shook his head. As Hazard rapped on the chief’s door, he heard Foley speaking in a low voice.

  “Come in,” Cravens called.

  “—one thing when he was solving cases, but what are we supposed to do with a fucking cripple on the force—” Foley said, his voice rising.

  “Let it go,” Somers said.

  “I’ll show him a cripple.”

  “Let it go.” And Somers pushed him into the office.

  Cravens was an older woman with long gray hair in a stylish cut. Out of uniform, she might have passed for someone’s grandmother, and some of it had to do with her rounded figure. But she’d been Wahredua’s first female detective, and after all those years on the force, she had brass balls bigger than most men. Her office was spartan, with only a few photos of her nieces and nephews and an air-freshener odor that probably would have been called fresh linen or something like that.

  When they were seated, Somers said, “What’s this about? Stop a murder? Is this something domestic? Helping a woman get away from her husband?”

  Cravens didn’t answer. There were new shadows under her eyes, Hazard noticed, and the nails on her left hand were ragged. In a gesture Hazard had never seen her make before, she pulled the long braid of hair across her shoulder and ran her hand down it.

  “Is this about Grames?” Hazard asked. “Are you pissed about that? Because I could have handled him. Whatever those goat-fucking idiots out there are saying, I can take care of myself. You don’t—”

  Somers bumped his foot, and Hazard stopped when he saw the look on his partner’s face.

  “This is something bad,” the blond man said.

  “It’s not something good.” Cravens cleared her throat, and her jaw creaked and popped, and Hazard wondered how old she was and how many of those years this job had compounded.

  “It’s not going to get any better waiting,” Somers said, but his voice was gentle. “Go on.”

  “What I’m going to say, you’re not going to like.”

  “We’re big boys. We can handle it.”

  She didn’t smile at that, and six months ago, she might have smiled. Instead, she ran her hand down her braid. Hazard’s mother wore her hair short. She had worn it that way for most of Hazard’s life. And when Hazard’s father had come home sloshed, when he had come home after a bad shift, when he had come home and shut himself in their room, in silence, for hours at a time, Hazard remembered his mother running fingers through her short, short hair over and over again. It wasn’t the same gesture as Cravens’s. If you took video of them and put them side by side, nobody would see the connection. But they were the same thing. The exact same thing.

  “When I started on the force,” Cravens said, her voice slow, “the chief was Edgcomb. Hal Edgcomb. Before your time, I guess. You two weren’t even born. Hal Edgcomb was a lot of things: he was fat and old and a misogynist. He didn’t want me on the force, but there was public pressure, and I was too good for him to outright ignore. He gave me the worst assignments every day until he resigned. If I messed up anything—we typed things in triplicate back then, and if the carbon was even the slightest bit smudged—he’d bring me in here and take off my head. The room’s changed a little since then. And I’m sitting on this side of the desk. But the truth is that I still think of him every time I walk through that door.”

  Somers raised an eyebrow at Hazard.

  “One day, he sat outside in the heat—it was a day
like this—trying to start his car.” Cravens laughed. “He had to have been out there hours, just sitting in the car, turning the key, pumping the gas. Honestly, I don’t know what kept him out there except that he was as stubborn as a mule. One of the patrol guys found him out there, just about passed out from heat stroke. He never did get the car to start. One of the battery cables had come loose, and he never even thought to pop the hood and check. That happened early on, when I was so green you could have used me for a traffic light, and after that, every time he hauled me in here, I’d think about what a stupid man he was.

  “On the desk,” she laid her palm down on the wood, “right here he had a plaque. Facing him, but I could read the text at an angle. It’s a Thomas Jefferson quote. Do you know what it said? ‘Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.’ I read that every time he was peeling my hide, and I thought about him passing out from heat stroke, and I would think, ‘Who is this stupid old man?’ I would think, ‘Only Hal Edgcomb would have a quote about failure on his desk to cover his own ass.’” She paused here, lapsing into silence. It was a deep, viscous silence, and Hazard felt it drawing at him. When Cravens spoke again, her voice had an edge Hazard hadn’t heard before. “But time makes fools of us all. Maybe I should have that on a plaque.”

  “All right,” Hazard said. “Out with it before I go out of my damn mind.”

  Somers bumped his foot again, but Cravens only blinked and seemed to come back into the moment. “Yes. All right. A citizen has been receiving death threats for the last few weeks. Nothing written. All of these threats have been verbal and delivered in person. The person who has been doing the threatening is—was—employed by this citizen; he had regular access to the citizen, and in my professional opinion, at least for now, he’s a credible threat. I’m assigning you two to a protective detail for the next few days. At least until we can track down this disgruntled ex-employee and figure out what to do with him.”

  “That’s a bullshit job,” Hazard said.

  This time, Somers kicked his shoe hard enough that the leather squeaked across the vinyl tile. “What my partner is trying to say, Chief, is that this sounds like a job for a couple of uniformed officers. They can rotate more easily, and Detective Hazard and I are busy—”