Mute (15 page)

Aaron didn’t think an extreme shade of green
existed that could represent the Lagoon Watcher’s one-man political party. Not
much for free speech inside his office, Sneed let his hand linger over his
revolver—and not one of the antiques in the glass cases.

“Sit yer ass down,” the detective growled. “I’m not
done asking questions.”

A swollen vein on Sneed’s forehead nearly burst
like a knotted hose when the haggard scientist blew him off and spun
Swartzman’s chair toward him. Peering down on the professor’s receding
hairline, Trainer couldn’t even draw eye contact from his former research
partner.

“I could use a little backup here. What gives?
Shouldn’t you return the favor?”

Swartzman’s face twisted sour. It reminded Aaron of
the look he had seen on the professor’s face when Trainer bought up some
incident about NASA. He couldn’t let it slip by this time.

“Whoa dude, you better have one killer favor in
mind that your bro owes you here ‘cause you’re asking a lot,” Aaron told
Trainer.

“How about saving his career?” The Lagoon Watcher
faced Aaron with a smart Alec grin. “That’s how it went with NASA.”

“That’s not what happened,” Swartzman said in a
lame attempt at convincing Aaron. Instead, his pathetic squeak amplified the
truth in Trainer’s story.

“Oh, sure it is,” the Lagoon Watcher said. “You
don’t have Alzheimer’s yet, do you buddy? Here’s a refresher for your friends:
You discovered the rocket tests at NASA were polluting the lagoon and wrote up
this whole paper on it. The night before your deadline to turn it in for a
feature story in the nature journal, a brute in a suit knocks on your door and
threatens to knock you out. You were ready to toss the envelope in the mail and
run, but I talked you out of it. Not only did you have more hair back in that
day, you had that rebellious streak in you. You thought your work could change
the world. But you forgot that our government keeps a whole range of people on
the federal dime so they can support the status quo.” Trainer flashed a
taunting grin towards the simmering Sneed. “If you had mailed that letter, they
would have canned your ass. You would have been done. Maybe you’d have ended up
a bum on a meager pension like me.”

“I doubt that, Harry,” Swartzman said. “But it’s
funny you went against your own advice and wound up here. That doesn’t make you
a killer, though.” The professor rose from his chair and stepped between Sneed
and his old friend. “He’s not capable of this, sir. I hate to be derogatory,
but he’s not nearly a good enough scientist to manipulate the genetic code of
bacteria by himself.”

Trainer rolled his eyes, but he didn’t contest the
knock on his skills.

Shaking his head, Sneed didn’t relax his menacing
pose in the slightest. “I wouldn’t put anything past anybody. I can’t tell you
how many street thugs had set up sophisticated boiler rooms or smuggling
operations. I think me and him need some alone time. I’ll see what he’s really
made of.”

The Lagoon Watcher backed toward the door and
wagged his finger at the detective. “I don’t see a warrant and you’re not
paying me to clean this dust bucket. That means I’m outta here.” He reached
behind his back and grabbed the handle.

Apparently, Sneed didn’t have enough on the Watcher
to claim reasonable cause because he didn’t make a move for him.

“You drive a blue pickup, right son?” Sneed asked.
He got no reply. “I hear one of those has been on the prowl lately ‘round the
schools. What for?”

The Lagoon Watcher left without saying another
word. Sneed turned his video monitor toward the scientists so they could see
him leaving the parking lot in his blue pickup. He had a Marlins ball cap on
the dashboard. Aaron didn’t understand the significance, but the shit-eating grin
on Sneed’s face coupled with the devastated puss of his professor told him
plenty.

Chapter 13

Moni paced past the crime lab a few times until the
professor had left, leaving young Aaron without his chaperon. The student
studied the photos of the beheaded body and the floating lumps of guts and
bones that had once been fish. When she slipped behind him and tapped him on
the shoulder, Aaron nearly jumped out of his skin. “Whoa!”

Then he turned around and must have realized that
those gruesome scenes were only photos. When Aaron blushed, Moni knew how much
he cared about impressing her. “Hi Moni. This stuff is pretty intense. I’ve
sliced open animals before…” She gave him a mocking glare of disgust. “You
know, like for dissection in class. I don’t enjoy it or anything. But this guy,
he’s straight up psycho.”

She couldn’t take her eyes off his mouth as he
spoke. He had this adorable smile like a little spider monkey. His body was
sculpted with lean muscle, no doubt from all the outdoor adventures that gave
him that golden tan.

The only outdoor adventures her ex Darren had were
shooting craps and tagging buildings with spray paint.

“You look like you could use a break,” she said.
“Come on in my office for a few.” Aaron scanned the lab for his professor.
“Don’t worry. Just tell him I needed your advice on a little something.”

Aaron probably thought of that story as an excuse
to go one-on-one with her, but it actually mirrored Moni’s intentions pretty
closely. In case he caught on to her ruse, Moni strutted ahead of him on the
way to her office so he could enjoy a little wiggle. Once inside, Aaron
immediately noticed the photo on the bookcase of Moni wearing the graduation
cap and police uniform with her arm around her beaming mother. Everyone who saw
that always remarked how much darker her mother looks, making it a dead
giveaway that her father is a white man.

The young man smiled with those handsome lips of
his. “I can see where you got your rocking looks from,” Aaron said. “Is she a
crime fighter too?”

His compliment sprouted a grin across her face that
covered up the bitter irony in his comment. Her mother had been a victim of
criminal battery at the hands of her father.

“My mother was a nurse, God rest her soul,” Moni
said.

“Oh… I’m sorry.” His smile gone, Aaron studied the
picture once more. Somehow, photos look different when it’s known that a person
in them is a ghost.

“It’s all right. She had a weak heart, but she’s in
a better place now.” That place being away from her father. The stress of their
abusive marriage drove her blood pressure up and killed her. Even from behind
bars, the nasty letters her father mailed home beat the woman down more than
his fists ever could.

Moni should have stepped up and saved her mother.
She had seen the bruises on her face and arms so many times, but she didn’t say
anything. Neither of them had called the police. Neither of them had fought him
off, much less lifted a hand against him.

She wouldn’t let it happen again. Moni promised
Mariella she’d protect her against that monster conducting a massacre along the
lagoon. She couldn’t help the girl until she knew whether she had been infected
or not, but Moni couldn’t trust anyone working for Sneed with the tests. He
wanted the girl more than the lagoon killer did.

After some conversational foreplay about Aaron’s
studies in the graduate program and how he lives in a beachside apartment with
friends—not his mom and dad—Moni cut straight to it.

“How about you drop by my place this afternoon?”
she asked. Aaron’s eyebrows shot up. “I’ll pick Mariella up and be in by
three-thirty.” His enthusiasm mellowed, but not by much. Most guys would have
ducked out right there. In her senior year of high school, Moni and her friends
joked that having a kid was as good as man repellant.

“That’s cool. I never had a little sister so I hope
I’m not a bad role model. I could teach her to surf.”

Mariella probably would have loved that if her
ordeal hadn’t made her terrified of the water. She kept a wary eye on the canal
behind Moni’s house all day, but she never went near it.

“We’ll save that for another day. She takes a while
to adjust to new people,” Moni said. “But I hope you bring your exam kit. After
her parents were murdered she spent the whole night near the lagoon. I just
want to make sure she’s, you know, healthy.”

“And you don’t want Sneed knowing. I don’t blame
you. He’s a damn good cop, but I get the feeling he’s more about bagging them
and tagging them than protecting kids.”

“You catch on fast,” Moni said with a giggle. She
ran her hand down his arm and gave those rock-hard shoulders a fleeting caress.
She wished she knew a good babysitter that could buy her a couple hours with
him.

“I wouldn’t worry about it though,” he said. “If
she had the thiobacillus
infection, it would be obvious. That thing is so brutal you’d see her sick for
sure. And it might make people all aggressive like those animals were. We both
know that’s so not a problem with her.”

Reminding
herself that Mariella only hurt the Buckley boy after he had provoked her, Moni
nodded. Still, she couldn’t help feeling a sour pit in her stomach. If the girl
didn’t have anything wrong with her, then why did someone leave the raven and
why did the stalker shadow Mariella at school?

“She’s okay. It’s just a precaution.” Moni realized
her attempt at an assuring grin fell flat.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll check her out tonight
as long as she’s ready.” He placed his hand on her shoulder for a second before
awkwardly withdrawing it like he thought he had moved a little too fast. And
Moni had thought beachside guys were all about hooking up, surfing and smoking
weed. At least he looked like the exception on one of those counts.

“Thanks so much.” This time, Moni hooked her digits
around his shoulder and dragged him in for a kiss on the cheek. He didn’t try
turning it into a lip lock—well behaved boy. She hadn’t dated one of those
since… ever. But acting all sweet wouldn’t help her if things got rough, and
between the men she couldn’t shake from her life and Mariella’s problems, she
knew they would soon enough. “Just keep one thing in mind. This isn’t a school
project. It’s the difference between people dying and escaping with their
lives. One witness is already dead. So if you want to get with this for real…”
Pausing, she noticed how he widened his eyes as if she were talking about
getting with her in a relationship. “Get with this murder investigation, I
mean… I just want you to understand because I don’t want to take advantage of
your, you know, your…”

Ringing from Moni’s phone interrupted her. Figuring
Mariella’s teacher had another round of bad news, she answered immediately.

“Hey, kiddo. You gotta explain to me what’s going
on down here. Those assholes won’t let me fish!”

The sound of her father’s voice hit Moni like
paralyzing spider venom. Her hand trembled. She could barely hold the phone.
Not now. She couldn’t let Aaron see her like this. At least one person in her
life shouldn’t know. Having caught onto her reaction, Aaron had already scooted
across the room.

 
“Can you
please call me back later? I’m on a case. It’s important that I…”

“I know what case you’re on and your case fucked up
my day. I was fix’n to fish under the causeway, but when I got here it smelled
awful—like rotten eggs. There were these signs warning me not to fish. I
marched right by them, but your damn pig brothers spotted me and kicked me out.
Are you gonna let that happen to me?”

She wished she had known. She would have told the
officers to book his ass. Or she should have. Moni knew deep down she would
have caved in and let her father have his way. His fists couldn’t travel
through the phone, but she still flinched at his every word.

“You got an answer for me?”

“Just listen to the signs.” She raked her jittery
hand across her forehead. “There is something wrong with the lagoon, but it’s
not my fault, okay? I’m working on fixing it.”

Averting his eyes as if a naked sumo wrestler were
standing before him, Aaron bolted for the exit. “You’re busy. Hey, it’s cool.
I’ll see you tonight.”

Hoping her father didn’t hear that, she covered the
phone as she called for Aaron. He vanished before he heard her. He didn’t want
any part of this.

Moni reared her arm back to chuck the phone against
the wall. She wound her arm through the throwing motion and returned it to her
ear. Ending a phone conversation early with her father meant setting up a
physical meeting. She didn’t need that, especially with Mariella in her house.

“You got a hearing problem, girl?”

“Sorry. I’m just…”

“You’re just stupid. What are you doing with a
child?”

He knew. Moni doubled over and gasped for air. She
clamped her teeth and shook her head. His fists came down so hard. His teeth
sank deep into her wrists until they bled. She smelled the leather on the soles
of his boot as it squashed her head against the wall. Now Moni left her body
and watched him inflict the abuse on someone else—Mariella cowering in her
closet and not even capable of screaming.

 
Then he
yelled at her:
“You been
fucking up my whole life, you little whore! All you do is screw up!”