Breath on the Wind (24 page)

“So the third cleaner survived yesterday.  You know who that was?”  Shark asked, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

“I only knew them by their first names.  Shauna and Frankie were caught in the blast.  I didn’t know the roster in detail, and I wasn’t there.  Not sure who they’d’ve been workin’ with, but I can give you the names of everyone, if you want to check them out.”

“That’ll take some time, even with our tech guy on it,” Chiz said ruefully, and then thought for a moment.  “Did the club have a security feed?”

“Yeah, but that’ll be toast.  It was just a basic set up in the boss lady’s office.  It wasn’t to keep people out.  It was more to keep track of the people payin’ to be there, in case shit went south.”  Shane paused again.  It looked like an idea had hit him, because he became suddenly animated.  “Let me call Lenny, the guy who owns the bar across the street.  He had a camera outside his bar.  It got a little rowdy at closin’ sometimes, and he wanted to be able to show the cops who threw the first punch.  His camera might’ve caught somethin’.”

Chiz and Shark both nodded, so Shane pulled his cell out and made a call.  When he was done he relayed the information he’d been given.

“His camera’s shot to shit, but the feed should be okay.  He’s gonna take a look at the footage from yesterday mornin’.”

“The cops haven’t asked him for it yet?”  Chiz was beginning to wonder if the CSI guys were even going to look at whatever they’d collected the day before, or if they were just going to pull a cause out of a hat.

“It got blown off the wall.  I don’t think they realized he had it, and he didn’t think to volunteer it.  He’s not as paranoid as we are.”  Shane narrowed his eyes at both Shark and Chiz.  “You two are takin’ a mighty personal interest in all this.”

Chiz gave Shane the look right back.  He wasn’t in a great mood.  He was dying for a smoke, but it would be more than his life was worth to stink up Shark’s room.  “Andy’s with me. That makes it my business.”

“So you two worked the last two weeks out?”

“And that is none of your business.”

“You’re right, it’s not.  But the Pumpkin Patch is my business. It was my job, my friends, too, and some fucker blew it up.  Sounds like you two are lookin’ to find who did it, and I believe you’ll look a lot harder than the cops.  I want in on that.”

“What’re you askin’?”  Chiz suspected he knew what was coming, but he wanted to be clear.

“I wanna patch in with the Priests.  I miss the life.  Andy’s a great boss, and it was a great job.  Now that’s gone, I got nothin’ left here.  And I miss ridin’ for a livin’.  Y’know what I mean?”

“Yeah, we do.”  Chiz couldn’t imagine not riding every day of his life.  He didn’t even want to try to imagine it.  “She’s comin’ back with me once she’s straight here.  We’re talkin’ ‘bout settin’ up in Louisiana.  You okay with that move?”

“Yeah, I’ll make it right with my old lady.  I wouldn’t mind workin’ for the boss lady again, if she opens a new place.”

Chiz looked over at Shark, who nodded.  “We’ll take it to the table.”

Shane took his leave of them, after he’d given them enough details for Crash to start running the requisite background checks.

So now Chiz was coming home with an old lady and a potential new patch.  Not a bad day’s work by anyone’s standards.  He was going to have to speak to Samuel about the bomb, and the potential involvement of the Church, though, especially if he was going to go after them.  That wasn’t something he could do without club backing, and Chiz had a feeling he was going to need some club resources.

Chapter Twenty-One

The day had dawned somber and overcast.  It was chilly, and Andy wasn’t convinced that it wouldn’t rain.  It didn’t matter.  The weather more than matched her mood.  She finished dressing in a black pants suit, and opted for black ballet flats in place of her usual heels.  It was Emma’s burial service, and there would be walking over grass involved.  Andy did not want to make the day any more difficult, for anyone concerned, than she knew it was already likely to be. 

She knew that Shane would be attending, too.  Jackie wanted to, but there was no way she was getting out of the hospital anytime soon. The fracture in one of the vertebra in her back was a minor injury by comparison.  Thanks to the loss of her lower left leg, she wasn’t going to be up and about all that soon.  Her spine would be healed by the time she was ready to start physical therapy, but that would not be happening in Alabama.  Jackie’s sister had arrived from Utah, and had made arrangements for Jackie to be moved back to her home state.  Andy wasn’t sure what had been said, or by whom, but Jackie’s sister was also blocking Andy and Shane from visiting their friend and colleague.  Jackie, still coming to terms with the loss of her limb, as well as the trauma of being in the middle of the blast, was in no fit state to put up any argument.

The remains of the people killed in the explosion had been released by the police department relatively quickly.  Andy suspected that it was because there wasn’t a great deal to release.  Andy wasn’t going to attempt to attend the services for the clients that had been killed, that would be adding insult to injury to their families, but she wanted to attend the services for her staff. Emma’s was the first of those.

It had been almost two weeks since the explosion.  Chiz’s friend Shark had returned home to his pregnant wife.  Meeting the massive man had been… interesting.  Andy had felt a little like a bug under a microscope, and Chiz had seemed anxious at first, too.  But Shark had seemed amused and intrigued by her in equal measure.  Andy’s impression of the meeting, which had taken place at the same bar in which she’d met Chiz, was very much of being introduced to family, rather than just a friend.  She’d also had the bizarre, or she thought so anyway, notion that maybe she was the first person that Chiz had done formal introductions for.

Chiz had been living with her since the day he’d arrived.  Apart from the snoring, that wasn’t working out too badly.  He wasn’t a slob, which she’d kind of known anyway, but it was reassuring to know that his neatnik habits hadn’t been confined to his motel room. 

His presence had had its uses, too.

Andy had wanted nothing more than for her world to go back to normal, to be able to get on with her life as if the whole damn thing hadn’t happened.  But that had not been possible, in any way, shape, or form.  Not only did she now have a live-in lover, she had no business to go to each day.  There were only so many hours that she could spend in her tiny house, and the gym, her second residence, had been out of the question, thanks to the stitches in her arms.  Consequently, she and Chiz had taken some extensive motorcycle tours of the state.

Andy was struggling with nightmares and flashbacks.  The flashbacks were the worst; she never knew when they were going to hit.  Any loud noise triggered something, from a flash of memory, or an imagined scent, to a full-blown panic attack, but they happened at random, too.  She’d lost two crystal glasses and a mug already to the shock of them.

At least she knew the nightmares were waiting for her when she fell asleep.  Her subconscious took what it remembered of that day, things she hadn’t even known that she’d noticed, and had turned them into Technicolor, three dimensional, inescapable epics of terror.  She was always crying, but not screaming, when Chiz woke her, and he always held her until she could drift back into an uneasy sleep.

Her stitches had been taken out days before, leaving only the fresh pink scars.  Andy wasn’t sure how she felt about them yet.  There had been two long gashes on her left arm, and one long wound accompanied by two shorter, but equally deep, ones on her right arm.  For now, she was simply going to cover them with her suit jacket, be glad the surgical thread was no longer itching or tugging at her skin, and pretend that they weren’t there.

Her life was in limbo, at least until she merged it with Chiz’s.  She wasn’t regretting that decision, but she had already begun to think about the practicalities, and how she could retain at least some sense of self.  That thinking had been kick-started by his Biker Brotherhood 101 lecture.  Andy already wanted to speak to Chiz’s president’s wife to find out how she’d put up with the rampant misogyny for so many years.

Andy had decided, very definitely, that she would not be living at the clubhouse with Chiz.  Not even if hell froze over.  In between riding across the state with him, particularly when Chiz had been out doing whatever it was he’d been doing with Shark before his friend had left town, Andy had spent some time online looking at available rentals in Absolution.  She had a list of apartments that looked as though they would suit her.  She was saving all her energy for compromising with Chiz, for when it came to looking for an actual house.

“You ready to go, doll?”  Chiz leaned around the bedroom doorframe.  He’d finished dressing well before her.

Andy was glad that Chiz was attending the memorial, too.  Not that he’d given her much choice; he wanted to be there to support her.  He’d even suggested taking her car and leaving his bike at home, although he wanted to do the driving.  He’d felt that his Harley would draw unnecessary attention.

Andy took one last look in her mirror, straightened her jacket, smoothed her hair, and checked that she didn’t have lipstick on her teeth.  “Yeah.  I guess.”

~o0o~

Emma’s family had opted for a graveside service in one of the city’s cemeteries, a great sprawling place with manicured lawns.  Twisted old oak trees were interspersed between the graves, but so widely spaced that the overall impression was still one of a large, grassy area, with carefully maintained, white marble markers.

White folding chairs had been arrayed around the hole that had been dug, ready to receive the casket containing Emma’s ashes. The hole was pitifully small compared to the number of chairs.  Most of the seats had been filled by the time Andy arrived, but she hadn’t intended to claim one of them, anyway. 

Andy spotted Shane.  He was standing behind the seated family, and a little part from them.  She pointed him out to Chiz and they headed over.  Shane was standing with his wife, a redhead who was half of her husband’s considerable height.  Andy had met Della before, but only a handful of times.  They said their quiet greetings as the pastor overseeing the service began his opening speech.  A few of the people on the back row of chairs turned to see who the new arrivals were, and Andy was struck by the way their expressions altered from interest to cold disgust when they saw her.

The eulogies that were given by Emma’s family and friends were brief, but poignant.  Emma’s two boys, both still in high school, did not stand up and speak.  Andy scanned the beautifully-tended estate as various people listed the qualities that had made Emma a beloved friend, mother and relative.  Andy didn’t think that this was right place for Emma to be laid to rest; it didn’t seem fitting for the free spirit that she had known.  If Andy had been asked, she would have said that Emma would have wanted her ashes to be scattered over the ocean.  Andy thought that although this might not be what Emma would have wanted, it was what her family needed, and there was something infinitely sad about that.

The cold damp of the day seeped into Andy’s bones as they lowered the walnut box, containing all that was left of her friend, into the ground.  Chiz caught her elbow, making her aware that the service had ended, and that many of the assembled group had vacated their seats.  She looked up at him.  He inclined his head towards the family.  Andy turned to see that Emma’s a father, a short man with iron grey hair, dressed in a stiffly respectable suit, was heading their way.  His face was a mask of barely controlled fury.  Andy drew strength from Chiz’s touch, and drew herself up taller as he approached.

“How dare you come here?”  He hissed as he reached them.

“We’re only paying our respects.”  The venom in the man’s voice struck Andy like she’d been splashed with acid.  She had to stifle a flinch.

“Well, you’re disrespecting her, sullying her name.”

“Sir…”  Andy wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but it didn’t matter.  Emma’s father did not want her to speak.  He interrupted her.

“Did you think we’d told the boys what their mother did for a living?  Of course we hadn’t.  They thought she worked in an office.  But now they know differently.  And now here you are, making it worse.  They recognized you.  Your picture has been in all the papers.”

“I didn’t know.”  Andy truly hadn’t.  She’d been avoiding any mention of the explosion in newspapers on or on websites.

“I don’t suppose you would’ve cared if you did.”

“Hey!”

Emma’s father backed up a full step at the joint exclamations from Chiz and Shane, but the two larger, muscled, less-refined men didn’t deter him.

“It doesn’t matter.  Just go.  You’re not welcome here.  None of you are.”  Emma’s father spat on the ground at Andy’s feet, turned on his heel, and stalked back to the waiting knot of relatives.

Andy was staring blankly at the point where he’d been standing when Chiz squeezed her arm, bringing her back to the present moment. 

“You okay, honey?”  Andy physically shook herself before she answered Della’s quiet concern.

“Yeah.  I suppose I should’ve expected it.  I just didn’t think that they hadn’t told the kids, or… well, anything.  He’s right.  I should’ve known better.”

“No, doll.  He’s not right.  He’s hurtin’ and takin’ it out on you.  It’s understandable, but that don’t make it right,” Chiz said as he slipped his arm around her waist, and started them walking in the direction of her car.

Andy moved her own arm around Chiz’s waist and allowed him to tuck her under his arm.  “Still, I’m not going to go to the other memorials.  I’m can’t say I’m one-hundred-percent certain where they stood with their families on their work at the Patch, so I’ll err on the side of caution.  I know Joe’s mama knew all about the place, and she never held anything against it, but she hasn’t planned a service.  I don’t think she will.”

“Why not?”  Chiz asked.

“Joe’s mama is the type to have him cremated, and then sit him on her mantle until the day she dies.  I don’t think Joe would’ve had it any other way, either,” Shane answered.

Andy allowed herself a small smile, knowing that Joe’s mama would do just that, and would probably hold full-blown conversations with her boy as she went about her cleaning and baking.

~o0o~

Andy was considering whether she was going to suggest that they spend the rest of the day indoors, pretending that the world outside did not exist, or whether she was going to ask Chiz to take her on another long ride to leave the wretchedness of the day behind.  Both plans were thrown out of her head by the sight of Detective Hill’s car parked outside her house.  The detective was absolutely the last person she wanted to see after the debacle in the cemetery.

He was blocking her driveway, and he took his time about starting the car and reversing it out of the way to allow Chiz to pull her Miata into its spot.  He shuffled out of his sedan as Chiz and Andy slid out of her car.  The thunk of three car doors closing at once sounded far too loud in the quiet street.

“Ms. Broussard.  I didn’t think you’d be long.”

“Excuse me?”  Andy was confused by the detective’s assertion.

“You were at the memorial for Mrs. Renard, weren’t you?” 

“Yes.  How did you know?”  Chiz was by her side now.  She could feel anger radiating from him.

Detective Hill shrugged, but didn’t elaborate.  “Aren’t you gonna invite me in?”

Andy put her hand on Chiz’s arm.  She’d felt him twitch, and had a feeling he was holding himself back from trying to flatten the detective.  “No, I don’t think I will.  What do you want, Detective?”

The detective shrugged again, apparently unaffected by her lack of hospitality.  “I thought I’d let you know how our investigation is going.  You’ll receive some paperwork on this, but nothing beats the personal touch.”