Shadows Fall (13 page)

“Oh, fuck me sideways,” I muttered. Hester Faa had arrived. I watched, filled with a sense of foreboding, as my granny approached the counter, not sparing a thought for whether DeRossi was in line or not.

“Hello, Gran, good to see you,” I said as sincerely as I could manage. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

Granny said nothing at first, looking me up and down, then Riot and Chelsea, and eyeballed Detective DeRossi. She tipped her head, indicating DeRossi. “This your
gajo
man-lover you left us for?” she asked, saying the
gajo—
non-Rom—part with as much, if not more derision than she said the gay part.

It was almost worth the embarrassment to see DeRossi’s eyes bug out and his face turn bright red—as much as a man of his coloring could. He accepted his refill from Chelsea and got the hell out of there without acknowledging Hester or myself again.

“Granny, I didn’t leave the
kumpania
for anyone but myself. Let’s not talk family business in front of the
gaje
, yeah?” As much as she wanted to rail on me for being gay and leaving the camp, I knew she would balk at sharing our business in front of the
gaje
in the shop.

She looked around the shop, squinting, her mouth pinched in disapproval, no doubt due to being surrounded by
gaje
. In her mind, they were only good for making money off of, so I didn’t understand the condemnation. “What is this place?”

I sighed, resigned to the fate of spending an indeterminate amount of time with my shrew of a grandmother, though I shivered at the thought of her ever finding out I thought such a thing about her. “This is my coffee shop, Granny.”

She sniffed, unimpressed. In a desperate and shameless attempt to take the attention off of me, I introduced my employees. “Gran, this is one of my best baristas, Chelsea Freeman.” I turned and indicated Riot. “And this is my roommate, best friend, and employee, Ryan Maynor. Guys, this is my grandmother, Hester Faa.”

“Nice to meet you,” Chelsea said.

“Well hello there,” said Riot, turning on the charm. He’d realize soon enough that it was wasted on Hester. “Welcome to Charlotte. Are you just visiting?” He reached out his hand to shake hers.

Hester scowled at Riot and then his hand. “You one of them homosexuals too, like
Titus le Harmanosko?”

I rolled my eyes at the use of my ‘true name,’ which translated to Titus, son of Harman. McGinty was my father’s
gajikano—
non-gypsy—surname. Riot’s face fell, either because of the refusal of his greeting or Hester’s attitude, but neither seemed to deter him.

“Yes, ma’am, I am.”

Hester sneered at him and barely spared a glance for Chelsea. In our culture, women and men were regarded separately and with more traditional roles than modern society. Women didn’t work—other than the occasional grifting or fortune-telling—outside the home. Hester was the exception in our
kumpania
because, as the Phuri Dai and a Shaman, she could do whatever she wanted. That didn’t stop her from looking down her nose at Chelsea for working outside the home, and among men.

“You asked for my help, boy.”

“So I did.”
What the hell was I thinking?
“Where did you park your trailer, Granny?”

Hester traveled around and lived in her pride and joy, a 1972 Airstream motor home, which she pulled from place to place in her battered old F150.

She flung her be-ringed hand toward the door. “On the street, where else?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, searching for patience. “There’s a parking garage one block over. You can’t just park that thing on the street. They’ll give you a ticket.”

“Pfft,” she spat, waving her hand again, causing her rings to jingle. “
Gaje
police. Who cares what they think? They give me tickets, I wallpaper my trailer with them.”

Having been away so much, I’d almost forgotten how much the Rom hated police. They didn’t like any non-gypsies telling them what to do, and they felt the Rom existed outside of
gaje
law. They governed themselves.

“Oy, you know what? I’m going to take you back to my house and show you where you can camp,” I said with a pleading look to Riot. “Then I’ll have to come back to work.”

“Go on,” Riot said. “I got this. I’ll see you later, Ms. Faa.”

Hester just grunted at him and followed me out the door. This would certainly be an interesting visit, but it was worth it if I could learn to control my clairaudience and live a more normal life.

* * * *

Amidst much grumping and fussing, I’d managed to get Hester settled for the time being. She’d parked her trailer in the residential alley behind our townhouse row. I told her I had a full day; I had to go back to work, then to the police station, and then had plans with a friend. She bitched about the police some more, made a few lewd comments about my ‘friend,’ and then assured me that she was perfectly capable of amusing herself until we could start our work the next day.

Of that, I had no doubt—it was what I was afraid of—but I didn’t have time to babysit her that day. There’d been no way of knowing when or if she’d show up after I sent her the letter. Hester eschewed modern technology, so there hadn’t been another way to contact her. Even if she did like to talk on the phone, she probably wouldn’t have taken my call.

I guessed that my situation had piqued her interest enough to come, but not enough to pretend she was happy about it. We were family, but we also harbored a mutual dislike of each other—hers more irreverent than mine, obviously—so I had no qualms about leaving her on her own until I had time to deal with her. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to bail her out of jail later.

One trip to the police station today was plenty, I thought as I entered the massive white palatial building. Wishing I were anywhere but there, I made my way back to the area that housed the Violent Crimes Division.

Detective DeRossi was sitting at one of the half-cubicles adjacent to the one I knew to be Charlie’s. When he saw me, I jerked my chin at him and he raised a finger signifying that he would be a minute.
Asshole
. It was a rude thought, but he struck me as kind of a rude guy.

Eventually he finished whatever he was writing, stood up, and crossed the room to me. “Thank you for coming, Mr. McGinty.”

His formality galled. I’m sure it was procedure, but I’d gotten used to Charlie’s familiarity with me. “You’re welcome, Detective DeRossi. I wish I could say it was my pleasure. I’m hoping we can make this quick.”

“I’ll do my best,” he said, and I was entirely unconvinced. I was surprised when he didn’t lead me back to his desk. Instead, he herded me down a narrow, L-shaped hallway. Stopping at one of the several gray metal doors, he opened it and gestured me in.

The room he stuck me in was not much larger than a broom closet, and it was very sparse. There were two black plastic-and-metal chairs around a tiny round table, a mirror—
duh
—and a shelf rack full of recording equipment and other electronics. I looked back at DeRossi questioningly, because this looked a lot like I imagined an interrogation room would, only smaller.

“Just have a seat, Mr. McGinty, and we’ll get started. I’m required to inform you that our conversation is being recorded. Do you understand?”

I bit back a sarcastic reply, because I wasn’t an idiot. “Yes.”

“Mr. McGinty, on the night of April twenty-sixth, you discovered the body of Brandon Meyers, is that correct?”

“Yes, although I didn’t know who it was. It was just a guy to me.”

“Uh huh,” he said absently, flipping through the stack of papers in his hands which I assumed was a copy of my statement. “You said that you passed a man on the street whom you didn’t see clearly but described to the best of your ability in your statement. Is
that
correct?”

“Yes, that is correct.” I was well on my way to becoming supremely irritated.

“Now here is where your statement gets a little fuzzy. You didn’t give a whole lot of detail about what happened from the time you passed the stranger to the time you decided to go into the building where you subsequently found Mr. Meyers.”

“Okay,” I said, stretching out the vowels. “That’s because nothing else happened.”

“And why is it that you went into an unlit construction site on private property alone at night, and so happened to find a dead body?”

I sighed heavily. I should have seen this coming. The detectives weren’t stupid; I’m sure they could figure out that there was information missing, because it was information that I couldn’t reveal. I had to think fast.

“I addressed this in my statement. There wasn’t any definitive reason. I just had a feeling about that building.”

“You had a
feeling
. Are you some kind of psychic, Mr. McGinty?”

I wanted to punch him in his stupid perfect teeth. Maybe that would wipe that condescending sneer off his face. “Of course not, that’s ridiculous,” I said, trying to play it off like
he
was the crazy one.

“Then I’m going to need more than just you ‘had a feeling.’ Are you sure someone didn’t tip you off that something was in that building? Or did you maybe see someone come out of it, but you’re just too afraid to say?”

Okay, that was just damn insulting. “I wouldn’t lie to the police!” Okay, I knew that was hypocritical… I wouldn’t lie to them about anything directly related to the murder. “If I saw anything, I’d say so. I’m not psychic, I’m not lying, I just got a feeling. Take it or leave it, man.”

DeRossi scowled at me, then opened his mouth to say something else but was cut off by the door being flung open with a bang. Charlie stood in the doorway, the breadth of his shoulders spanning the frame. His jaw was clenched and his eyes narrowed dangerously at DeRossi. “What the hell is going on here?”

Chapter Ten

Charlie Hale had been following up on a lead all day, tracking down the medical records of Dallas Wade, the fourth victim. The parents had released them to him, thankfully, so he hadn’t needed a court order. All he could tell was that she was indeed on the UNOS transplant list awaiting a new liver, though her parents had already confirmed as much. The rest was a whole lot of medical jibberish that it wasn’t his job to understand, so he packed everything up and dropped it off with Dr. Johanssen.

He was in a good mood because he hoped the medical records would lead to some kind of break in the case, and because he was going to see Titus later that night. He’d allowed a day to freak out about having his first gay sexual encounter, but then he talked himself down. He’d known he was gay for a while, so while it was a big deal to finally act on it, it wasn’t cataclysmic. And by God, he was
very
interested in seeing where it could lead.

Taking a detour to the bullpen, he decided to update Sonny on what he’d found. When he got there, Sonny’s desk was empty. “Hey Cheryl? Has DeRossi been in this afternoon?” he asked one of the dispatchers.

“Oh, yeah, Sonny’s got someone back in interrogation two.”

Charlie frowned. He had no idea who Sonny could be interrogating as they had no active suspects in either of the cases they were working in tandem, especially not in the Slayer case. “You know who he’s got in there?”

“I think it’s the witness from the Meyers crime scene, that young guy.”

What. The. Fuck. Sonny hadn’t said anything to him about bringing Titus in for more questioning, which led him to believe that his partner hadn’t wanted him to know. Seeing red, Charlie barreled down the hallway toward the interrogation rooms.

When he flung open the door of interrogation two, he saw Sonny sitting across from a severely annoyed looking Titus. He stalked into the room and jerked a thumb at Titus. “Would you wait outside for a minute?” His posture and behavior was aggressive, but his voice was gentle when he addressed Titus. It wasn’t his fault.

Titus excused himself from the room with one more narrow glare at Sonny, and shut the door behind him as if he assumed this was not going to be a conversation for polite company. As soon as he was gone, Charlie rounded on his partner.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Questioning a witness behind my back, treating him like a suspect? That’s not like you, DeRossi.”

Sonny stood, taking a defensive stance. “You know what’s not like
you?
Ignoring the eighteen-wheeler-sized hole in that guy’s statement. He’s hiding something, Hale.”

“If that’s what you think, why didn’t you share your concerns with me? You know, your partner.”

Something indefinable flickered in Sonny’s eyes, something that told Charlie that whatever came out of his mouth next wouldn’t be the whole truth. “Something about this case, man… it’s got you all wrapped up. I didn’t want to insult you by saying you missed something until I could figure out what it is.”

“Christ, DeRossi, do you realize how fucked up that sounds?”

Sonny reddened under his olive skin. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, okay, maybe I was out of line, but I have a feeling about this guy’s story… it makes my scalp itch.”