Scars (Nevada James #2) (Nevada James Mysteries) (8 page)

Chapter 10

It took me
twenty minutes to reach the address Dan had given me, which turned out to be an
abandoned community park in the hills northeast of the city. Rusted play
structures sat at one end of it, with a picnic area at the other. Chain-link
fence posted with signs for a local construction company surrounded the entire
thing. This lot was probably going to be bulldozed at some point in the near
future to make way for a new strip mall, or something equally as unnecessary.

The park
held so many police officers one might have thought they were having a
convention. That was probably what had attracted the media, who already had
their cameras trained on the scene, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was
inside. I ignored them as I made my way past the uniforms guarding the
entrance. I’d rather they not get a shot of my face this time.

Dan
Evans was easy to spot; with his size he’d have stood out in any crowd that
wasn’t made up entirely of professional football players. Sarah Winters and Brad
Ellis stood at the bottom of a children’s slide nearby, looking at something I
couldn’t see yet.

Dan
moved to intercept me as I headed for the slide. “I don’t want you to freak
out,” he said. “This one’s different than the other.”

“You
said that already. I’m not exactly known for freaking out, Dan.”

“Yeah,
except for that one time you did, and you wound up in the psych ward.”

I
shrugged. “I don’t like to do things halfway.” He still looked nervous. “What?”
I asked. “You don’t really think this is the Laughing Man?”

“I don’t
know what to make of it.”

“Then
I’ll be able to rule it out pretty quickly,” I said. “There’s no way this is
him.”

“You
haven’t even seen the body yet,” he said.

“I don’t
need to. The Laughing Man isn’t going to start the game when there’s an
impostor sitting at the board.”

Dan’s
brow wrinkled. “Huh?”

“Oh,
forget it. Show me what you’ve got.”

Dan led
me over to the slide. Sarah and Ellis stepped aside so I could see the victim
lying on her  back at its bottom, as if she’d just come down from the top and
stopped to look up at the sky. This one was a woman in her twenties. She wore a
set of flannel pajamas and had her brown hair pulled back in a bun. I couldn’t
see the knife wound that was almost certainly in the back of her neck, but I
had a great view of her face, which had been mutilated into the Laughing Man’s signature
smile. The cuts were cleaner; I was willing to bet they’d been made with a
straight razor this time. The marks weren’t nearly as expert as the ones the
Laughing Man would have made, though. Straight razors weren’t as easy to use as
a precision weapon as a person might have thought. I’d spent a lot of time
practicing with one when I’d worked his case all those years ago. There was a
learning curve.

And
beyond that, there was the obvious problem. I chuckled. The absurdity of it was
just too much for me.

Sarah
nearly turned white when she heard me laugh. “Good god, Nevada,” she said.

Ellis
watched me curiously while Dan put a hand on my shoulder. “Nevada, it’s okay,”
he said. “Come away now.”

I shook his
hand off and turned to the crowd on the other side of the fence, cupping my
hands around my mouth. “Hey! You dumb fuck!” I shouted. “Are you watching this?
Can you hear me?” I looked around, then started yelling again. “This isn’t even
close
!”

Dan grabbed
me by the arm. “What the
hell
is wrong with you?” he snarled. On the
other side of the police lines I could see television cameras filming our
position. Odds were I was going to be on the news again.

“Oh, get
off me, Dan.” I shook myself free and pointed at the body. “Don’t any of you
see it?”

Dan
looked at the body, and then back at me. “Okay. What are we supposed to see,
Nevada?”

I held
out my hands in front of me in a square shape, my thumbs touching like a movie
director framing a shot. “Look at the piece, Dan. What do you see?”

“The
piece
?”
Sarah asked. Ellis just scowled at me.

“I see a
body on a slide,” Dan said.

“But
what does it
say
to you?”

Dan
looked at me like he was trying to figure out if I’d taken up smoking crack.
“It says some lunatic killed a woman.”

“It
doesn’t say
anything
!” I said. “It’s
nothing
. It’s
garbage
.
This is some kid playing with daddy’s tools in the garage.”

Dan put
his hands in his pockets and glared at me. “Okay, I’ll give you it wouldn’t be
the Laughing Man’s best work…”

“What
you have here is someone who wants to impress the Laughing Man so much that
he’s making crude caricatures of what the Laughing Man actually
does
.
It’s a little better this time, I’ll give him that much. He’s learning. But
it’s still garbage.”

Sarah turned
around and took a few steps away from me. “Okay,” Ellis said. “If you’re such
an expert, what would
you
have done?”

“I don’t
know,” I said. “I wouldn’t go around killing people in the first place. But at
least…I don’t know. The Laughing Man creates still
lifes
, not still
deaths. Sit her up on the slide like she’s enjoying herself. Have her looking
at something. Throw some props in there. Dress her up in clothes that would be
a little more appropriate to what she’s doing. She’s in her pajamas, for fuck’s
sake.” I snapped my fingers. “I’ve got it. She’s in her pajamas. He should have
done it at her house, instead. Sit her up at the kitchen table like she’s
eating breakfast. Make her coffee and muffins. Get some orange juice and cereal
in there because those are parts of that balanced breakfast. If he was being
really creative he could put the TV on to one of those dumbass morning shows;
have it repeat on a loop so Al Roker would still be doing the weather when
someone came in. That would be fucking
perfect
.”

Dan took
me by the arm again and started dragging me away from the scene. “I’ll walk you
back to your car,” he said.

“What?”
I asked. “You wanted my opinion.”

He was
practically marching me away from the body now. “You are starting to scare me,”
he said under his breath.

“Why?”

Dan
shook his head. “Now I get why Sarah talked to me about you. You’ve completely
lost sight of the fact that that’s a person back there. It’s not a painting,
Nevada. It’s a real life that’s gone.”

“I know
that,” I said.

“You don’t
appear to know that at all,” he said. “I can’t believe I thought you were
stable enough to handle this.”

“You
mean you didn’t bring my badge with you?” I asked. “You’re not going to ask me
to come back and be a detective?”

“Fuck
no.”

“Aw.” I
looked over my shoulder. Sarah and Ellis were watching me go like I was being
taken to the principal’s office. Well, Ellis was, anyway. Sarah had a look on
her face that suggested I was on my way back to the psych ward. “Okay,” I
admitted. “Maybe I was a little abrupt about that whole thing.”

“Abrupt?”
Dan asked. “You were downright terrifying.”

We
reached my car and Dan opened the door for me. “I think you’re overreacting,” I
said.

“I think
we’re going to have a very long conversation about this later,” he said.

“Oh,
good,” I said. “I love long conversations. It’s my favorite thing to do besides
pull all my fingernails out.”

“Get
your ass in the car, Nevada.”

I got in
the car and Dan shut the door. I watched as he walked back to the crime scene.
He
was
overreacting, wasn’t he? I thought it over. Of course he was.
Unless…maybe he wasn’t. Was there something wrong with me? I hadn’t laughed at
a crime scene like that before. Never.

Except…I
actually had. Three years ago, when I’d failed to get to the Laughing Man
before he killed those two little girls. After he’d beaten me half to death.
When I was on my knees after he’d walked away, looking at the blood on my
hands. Watching it drip onto the floor. I’d laughed then. I’d laughed until a
doctor shot me full of sedatives and knocked me out.

I took
my phone out of my pocket and started to dial Molly’s number. I hung up when it
started ringing. This wasn’t something I could talk to her about. We’d been
clear that she could be my friend or my therapist, but not both. I wanted her
as a friend more than I wanted her as a therapist. But I was starting to think
I might be falling into a hole, and I definitely wanted to talk to someone
about that.

This
didn’t seem like a good time to be going back to an empty motel room and
looking through files. I looked at the clock and then thought about how long it
would take me to get downtown. I did have somewhere else I could go. If I
hurried I’d make it in time. I started the car and started in the direction of
the freeway. I’d been putting this off for too long. It was time to talk to the
drunks.

Chapter 11

The cops
had their daily A.A. meeting in a small side room at the Lutheran church
downtown. I think the Lutherans probably used it for Sunday school. I’d never
asked. I hadn’t been to a religious service since I’d been a child, and I was
in no hurry to start back up again now.

I
reached the church just before 5:30. Jason London was on his way in and spotted
me coming up the steps. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I didn’t think we were
going to see you in here again anytime soon.”

“I just
really missed you guys,” I said. “You know how sentimental I get.”

“Yeah,
that sounds like you.”

“How did
it go with the drug bust?”

“About
like you’d expect,” he said. “They sold me drugs. My guys came in and arrested
them. They seemed really surprised.”

“Some
people never learn.”

“Good
thing, too. I’d be out of a job.” He started to smile but it froze when he took
a good look at my face. “You all right?”

“Yeah.
Rough day, I guess.”

“I guess
that explains why you’re here,” he said. “Well, you’re in the right place.”

Inside
the room was the usual rogue’s gallery of ex-drunks with guns I’d come to know
and…kind of like, anyway. Love wasn’t my thing. Mike Brown, a former detective
from Robbery who’d been busted down to patrolman for drinking on the job sat
next to Miranda Callies. Half a dozen other cops in and out of uniform sat on
folding chairs that had been arranged in a wide circle. Most had Styrofoam cups
of nasty black coffee in hand. I stopped at the table near the door to pour
myself half a cup of the black stuff. I only drank regular coffee at A.A.
meetings, never really having cared for it. I didn’t think the group was going
to bring in an espresso machine just to accommodate me.

I took a
chair in the circle and sat down while Mike Brown read from one of the
laminated sheets that had the A.A. steps and traditions printed on them. It was
always the same routine at the beginning of meetings, and probably had been
since…I didn’t actually know. I hadn’t read a lot of the organization’s
history. A.A. had gotten its start in the 1930’s but at first it had been a
couple guys just sitting around talking. The printed stuff had come later. I
didn’t know if it could be amended like the Constitution, or if it had been set
in stone for decades.

After
the recitation of the steps and traditions, Paul Wilkins, who had been the
training officer of at least three people in the room, opened up by asking if
anyone had anything they wanted to get off their chest. He looked pointedly at
me as he did so. I didn’t say anything. One of the patrol officers spoke up
instead and spent a few minutes talking about her marriage. When she was done
we went in a circle, taking turns to speak. Nobody had anything
earth-shattering or life-changing they needed to talk about. For some people,
meetings probably had much the same function of going to a therapist or a priest
would. You could talk about whatever you wanted to and nobody in the room was
going to break your confidence. It also had the advantage of being free, and
there was no priest to assign you a penance if he didn’t like what you had to
say.

When the
circle got to me I said, “My name’s Nevada. I’m an alcoholic.”

“Hi,
Nevada,” everyone said in unison.

“I’m not
sure why I’m even here today,” I said. “I guess it’s that I’ve been to two
crime scenes this week and looked at two bodies, and now everybody thinks I’m
crazy.”

Miranda
nearly gasped. “You got your badge back?” Everyone turned to stare at her.
Interrupting someone while they were speaking was strictly taboo. “Sorry,” she
said.

“Forget
it,” I said. “I’m not back with the department. I guess I’m a consultant, or
something like that. The thing is…” I took a second to think. “I’m not reacting
to it. Or I’m reacting
wrong
, I guess. I was out looking at a woman with
her face sliced half off and I started trying to taunt whoever was responsible
for it. Shouldn’t I be…I don’t know. Sad? I mean, not falling apart, obviously.
I’d have made a pretty shitty cop if I got weepy every time I saw a dead body.
But I’m not a cop now. I see these dead people and I just don’t give a shit
about them. It’s not any different than looking at cat litter.” I thought about
that for a moment. “I think I might be broken,” I said. “Anyway, that’s all I’ve
got to say today. Thanks.”

The
meeting continued until everyone had had a turn to speak, and then Paul brought
things to a close with the Serenity Prayer and a reminder that anything said in
this room was supposed to stay in this room. My coffee had gotten cold; I’d
forgotten to drink it. As people shook each other’s hands and started drifting
out, Miranda Callies came over and sat down next to me. “It’s good to see you
here,” she said.

“I just
really missed sitting in a circle,” I said.

“No, you
didn’t.” She smiled. “Did you call Howard Lanford?”

“No,” I
said. “I got busy with this damn copycat thing. I’ll try him tomorrow. It’s not
time-sensitive. I mean, unless he dies of old age before I reach him. I’d feel
pretty stupid about it then.”

Paul
stepped over to us. “It’s good to see you, Nevada,” he said. “How long has it
been?”

“Two
weeks,” I told him. “But you’d think I died, the way you people react.”

He took
a seat next to Miranda. “When someone disappears from this circle it’s not hard
to imagine they’ve gone back out again.”

“Fair
enough,” I said. The group had had its share of relapses. Every now and then
somebody would stop coming in for a while, and then they’d be back to start
their A.A. medallion collection all over again. I was coming up on four months
sober. There was no way in hell that was going to happen to me.

“You
said two crime scenes?” Paul asked. “Is this the copycat, or does Homicide
bring you in on everything these days?”

“It’s
the copycat,” I said. “I started laughing when I saw the body. Dan’s mad at me.
And Sarah Winters is probably afraid of me by now.”

“Sarah
understands that you and she approach things from very different places,” Paul
said. “Very few people have had your…well, why don’t we say your experiences
give you a
unique
perspective?”

I stared
at him. “Sarah talks to you about this?”

“She
does,” he nodded. “She thinks the world of you, and she likes to consider you a
friend.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, Nevada. I don’t repeat anything you, or
anybody else, says in this room. Sarah’s been like a daughter to me, though.
When she needs to talk, I listen to her.”

“She’s
such a Girl Scout,” I said.

“Are you
saying she’s not your friend?”

“No,” I
said. “I’m not saying that. I don’t know why she’s working homicides, though.
She’s good at it, but she’d probably have been a better kindergarten teacher.”

“I can’t
say that never occurred to me,” Paul nodded.

Mike
Brown came over and shook my hand as he headed out, as did another of the
patrol cops. “Did you ever meet Brad Ellis?” I asked Paul.

“Once or
twice,” he said. “I’ve heard he’s a good detective.”

“He’s a
preening douchebag,” Miranda said.

“I’ve
also heard that,” Paul admitted. “I’m sure I didn’t hear it in here, though.”

“It
doesn’t matter,” I said. “Sarah can hold her own. Anyway, I didn’t really come
in here to talk about the case. It’s just…I don’t know why I’m like this.”

“Depression?”
Jason asked from where he’d been saying goodbye to another cop. “They make
pills for that.”

“Maybe
you shouldn’t be the person to talk to me about pills,” I said.

He
shrugged. “I didn’t mean the stuff I was on. You know doctors actually
prescribe medicine for people. Half the department is on something or other.”

“Nevada,”
Paul said. “Why did you start drinking?”

“I don’t
know.”

“Yes,
you do.”

I scowled
at him. “Fine. I drank so I could sleep at night. And later I drank because it
was the only way I could get through the day. Because I hated the person I was
and the booze made me forget about that person. It’s not rocket science.”

“No,
it’s not. I think you know what we call it.”

“We call
it self-medication,” I said. “I’ve read the book, Paul.”

“It’s
not in those same words,” he said, “but the fact is, the reasons you drank
didn’t just go away when you put the bottle down. We don’t just magically become
different people overnight. We just become people who don’t drink anymore.”

“I don’t
know if that’s better or worse,” I said. “At least when I was drinking it
didn’t bother me.”

“You
also didn’t have the chance to make any changes,” Miranda said. “I didn’t know
you then, but I heard you were pretty much living in a cave waiting to die.”

“It
wasn’t a cave,” I protested. “I hadn’t vacuumed in a while, sure, but there
wasn’t
that
much mold on my carpet.”

“It was
a metaphor, Nevada. Sort of.”

“I
know.” My phone buzzed and I looked at the caller ID. Dan Evans was checking
in. I could ignore him for a while, but he’d never stop calling until I talked
to him. “I should go,” I said. “I’ve got a couple things I need to do.” I
looked around at the three of them. “Thanks for being here.”

“That’s
what we do, Nevada,” Paul said. “And you’re here for us, too.”

“Well,
good luck to
you
guys, then.” Anyone who called me when they were having
a crisis was going to have it rough. I wasn’t good at that kind of thing.
Unless they were calling because they needed me to shoot someone. That much I
could handle.