Dead Tide Read online

  Her car isn’t much. Maybe it was once, but not now. It is a 1995 Mercury Cougar XJ-7, with a V-8 engine, a fading cherry red paint job, and a slight transmission problem. Also, the odometer, the power locks and the power windows don’t work. The windows do with help. The night is cool enough to make using air conditioning ridiculous. She grabs her keys from her purse and opens the door. The interior dome light is also out. She slides into the seat and waves goodbye to Frank. From here, all goes as usual. The engine starts smoothly, the interior dash lights work and she backs out of her space.

  The club she works for is simply called Desires, and is on a service road beside U.S. 19. At this hour, on a Wednesday night, the road is barely lit and empty. All the customers left a half hour ago. Most of the other businesses are only open during daylight hours. The road also goes only north, in other words just one way—the wrong direction for her. Her home is in an unincorporated area between St. Pete and Pinellas Park that is south of here.

  17

  With roughly two hundred feet between her car and the place to make a U-turn, she spots something in her headlights. It looks like a group of men; they are off the road gathered around… something. It is the parking lot for a hole-in-the-wall bar called, “Dirty Dent’s.” Several motorcycles and pickup trucks are in the parking lot. It looks like a fight. Yeah, they’re fighting, she thinks. I need to get out of here. She floors the Cougar, and there is a brief sluggish increase in speed accompanied by the roar of revving rpm’s, then the car fishtails a bit as the big engine responds properly and gathers speed. As she passes the group it looks like they are following her: pale shapes caught in her headlights. She is panicking now, and stands on the brake, afraid to miss the turn but even more afraid of the men now chasing her.

  She slows down just enough and takes the turn cleanly with a squealing of brakes. Another block up she can see a street light shining down on her ramp. Something hits her trunk and she floors the gas pedal again. The engine lurches, once, twice and again catches its rhythm. She is up to fifty, then fifty-five in seconds. Thank God it looks clear, she thinks. What a shitty night!

  She turns on her radio. Maybe there is something on the news…

  WHEN HE HEARS THE VOICES OF THE POLICE, he wants to shout. Maybe they can stop his parents from hurting each other and the dogs. No words come. Surprisingly, he finds that he can move, but his vocal cords seem paralyzed. He takes off his shoes and leaves them on the bed. He carefully lowers a socked foot and then the rest of his body to the floor and lies face down with his eye to the crack.

  For a moment all is quiet, but then a strange noise. Is someone — his mother maybe—eating something? It sounds like his father eating ribs after a few beers. Smacking lips and a grunt or two come from the direction of the dining room.

  Several gunshots ring out. He is startled but only for a moment. There are footsteps, maybe boots in the house below. The police are inside. Should he call out?

  18

  Then he can hear the voices of two men. The figure of a big blonde man appears in the hall doorway. His shoulders, arms and chest are enormous and he is holding a shotgun one-handed and a flashlight in the other. He’s wearing blue jeans, sneakers and a windbreaker. He looks around briefly then turns back into the dining room.

  The two men exchange remarks with each other, something about dogs, and then he hears a man say something like: “You aren’t going to bite me, bitch!” and then once again there is a gunshot. Something hits the floor. The big man says, “Good shot.” The other man’s reply is too low to understand, but then he enters the hallway. He has a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other. “Anybody here? Is there anybody else here? I don’t want to hurt you. Just come out…”

  Daric shakes his head. The police have finally come to his house. His friend Jeff always told him it would happen sooner or later. The other man is wearing a police uniform but no hat. He too is a big, solidlooking guy, but a little smaller and thinner than the blonde man. His hair is going gray at the temples and he has a very serious face. The blonde guy has a nice face. This smaller guy looks angry.

  No way. They will have to find him. He isn’t about to come out now. The angry guy approaches the door to the second bedroom.

  PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE NEIGHBORHOOD are gathering around the Jenkins’ house. Despite the presence of the black cop, the crowd is muttering. The tall, lanky cop is on his car radio, frantically calling for something. His eyes are wide and disbelieving.

  “That PoPo be on the edge, Bronte. Bronte!” says Tracks. Bronte barely hears him. The wail of an approaching ambulance and another police car suddenly cut off and a moment later both vehicles appear, driving slow with their revolving lights still on.

  A group of twenty or more people stand within twenty feet of the two officers who are still outside. “Hide your shotgun, Tracks. Let’s go join the crowd. Don’t do anything unless I tell you to.”

  19

  Most of the crowd appears to be people from the neighborhood, but a few are bums, probably crack heads. At the moment, things are on a knife edge. He can hear the female cop trying to calm people down, but someone is getting in her face, a woman…

  “Janicea is stirring things up again, Bronte,” says Tracks. “I know,” he answers. Janicea is part of a local hate group. She is tall and athletic, with a mane of frizzy reddish hair framing an ironically beautiful face. Her physical beauty is now merely a mask for all the ugliness of the unrepentant zealot, but it wasn’t always so. He can remember a time when she didn’t live to hate. He and Tracks are close enough to hear everything now, standing just two people behind Janicea.

  “That’s one of our people dead over there, Officer Williams. You saw Officer Ski shoot him and you did nothing. He executed Tyrese like a dog—”

  Bronte pushes his way to the front. “No Janice, that’s not what happened.”

  Janicea turns toward him, and he wonders if she remembers. She looks furious and very caught up in the moment. She is wearing a low cut blouse and her chest is heaving and her eyes are bright and he can feel the old chemical attraction still there… but does she?

  “How do you know what happened…” and whatever else she was about to say is lost. Does she recognize him?

  “I saw the whole thing. Tyrese was shot down because he came out the door like a rabid dog, trying to bite. The officer defended himself.”

  The crowd is silent.

  At the corner of his eye, Bronte sees someone move. It’s the tall lanky officer. He is abandoning Williams and heading for the ambulance and cruiser that have just arrived.

  “We got us a couple of heroes,” he hears Janicea say. “War heroes fresh from mother and baby killing over in Iraq… What’s a couple of heroes doing here with normal folks? They must be crusading down here, my brothers and sisters. They down here saving white men—”

  “Shut the fuck up Janice,” he says.

  “Watch out Bronte,” says Tracks out loud. “She got some Haters with her.”

  Bronte looks and they aren’t hard to spot. There are three of them, all big men. One is holding a brick and the other two are holding clubs, and all with hate in their eyes. None can get to him before he can draw his pistol. The one with the brick might be the leader. He is the most aggressive and the closest. Bronte’s hand is on the pistol when a fresh

  20

  argument breaks out. This time the argument is between the tall cop named Dodd, an obvious chicken-shit and the sergeant who’s just exited the cruiser. Behind them, two paramedics are struggling with one of those rolling stretcher-beds.

  “The fucker slapped me and took my shotgun, Sarge. I want him arrested.”

  The sergeant, a haggard-looking man with an anchor tattoo on his right forearm, gives him a skeptical look. “He slapped you, James?”

  “Hell yes, he did, and then—”

  The sergeant cuts him off. “Where are they now?”

  “Ski and Keller? They’re still inside the house.”
>
  The sergeant raises a hand to his forehead, and rubs his temple. “Well, you and Williams get control of this crowd and I’ll check on Ski.”

  Dodd stands still. “What about Keller?” he says to the sergeant’s back.

  “Just do your job, James.” The sergeant says this without turning around as he mounts the porch.

  “You hear that Brenda?” says Dodd, to Officer Williams. Bronte notices the disgust on her face as she briefly looks at Dodd. She turns back to the crowd. “Go home everybody… The show’s over,” she says, raising her voice.

  Incredibly, the crowd starts to melt away. Bronte is surprised. Janicea waves off her men. She turns halfway toward him, with just the right side of her face in profile. “We aren’t through, Bronte.” He can’t tell if she sounds angry or not. She doesn’t wait for an answer, but struts away in her tight jeans.

  “No, we aren’t, Janice,” he replies, and can’t help wondering about the ambiguity of these final words.

  21

  CLASSICAL MUSIC BLARES FROM HER SPEAKERS, but she isn’t in the mood. “I need some seventies,” she says, and hits the seek button on her stereo. There is a momentary pause, a static buzz, and she hears a man’s voice say, “The moon is full tonight, and the night is full of crazy things.” There is a long drawn-out sigh and maybe a little chuckle. “If you are out and about tonight, good librarians, maybe you’d better head home.”

  What channel is this ? She glances down. At night sometimes you get stations you never get in the day. Her finger hovers over the seek button.

  “Yes, you’d better head home and lock all the doors, and load all your guns…”

  She shivers. What kind of nut… she has arrived at her turn, the light is green and no one is coming the other way. She has time to say, “Oh shit!”

  He is there one moment and gone the next, his body literally catapulting up and over her bumper, hood and windshield. His head hits the windshield and explodes like a watermelon. It happens so fast she has no time to react except for an instinctive hunching of the arms and torso and a scream as her car goes off the road and slams into a ditch.

  Something strikes her face and chest. The airbag? She nearly fades out from the pain. Too much pain to move and she keeps swimming in and out of awareness. Someone or thing is pounding on the roof of her car, then the whole car rocks. Through a thinning fog, she hears her door creak. The bag obscures her vision, but there is a louder screech of metal and the tinkling of broken glass. Cold fingers fumble at the bag and find her arm. She hears a moan. The fingers tighten painfully around her arm and begin yanking.

  “Owwwww! My seat belt’s still on! Wait!” Another yank and this time she screams. With her free right hand she finds the seat belt clasp

  22

  and releases it—Just in time to be yanked completely from the car into the arms of a nightmare! The sour stench of beer and urine envelopes her. The man has her by the left arm, with both hands wrapped around her bicep. His face is something out of a carnival freak show. Something about it is off kilter, a little lopsided maybe, like the skin is loose. His mouth has a sunkenin look that tugs at her memory. Does she know him? Is this the man she hit? He certainly is bloody. His shirt and pants look soaked.

  “I’m sorry mister,” she blubbers. “I didn’t see you—honest!” Her eyes are already watering, but now a hot flood of tears pours down her cheeks. She looks around for a place to run. She is at the bottom of an eight to ten foot weed-choked ditch.

  He moans again and she sees that one eye has rolled up in the socket. The good eye is wandering over her nearly nude body. Maybe a crop top, short-shorts and sneakers weren’t a good choice for drive home attire this evening. He yanks her arm again and lowers his head, with his mouth open. What? She is too stunned to react. His mouth is on her arm, sucking, tongue wiggling against her flesh. What is that odd sensation, his gums? A sudden realization: he has no teeth. “You sick bastard!” she yells, and pulls her arm free. She crashes against the car, can’t find a grip on anything and finds herself on her back with the man following her. He falls to his knees at her feet and manages to grab her left foot. She struggles, trying to free it, and meanwhile he is back up to his gumming trick. A sudden idea. She brings her left leg back, the top of her thigh grazing her chest, and kicks downward. Her foot catches the freak square in the face and he lets go. She climbs to her feet just as he rises up on his knees. She remembers her karate and gives him a side kick to the head. He flops over onto his back.

  He doesn’t move. She gives it a moment or two.

  Nothing.

  She steps close to him and stomps. Something breaks. Goddamn

  Pinellas Park redneck! Just like killing a roach, she thinks. She waits. Her breathing slows. She can hear the electric hum of a streetlight twenty feet away, the sounds of intermittent traffic filter to her. She takes the time to get three things from her car: keys, purse and gym bag, then she looks for a way out of the ditch.

  Moonlight reveals a worn path up and out just ten feet or so south down the ditch.

  She looks up briefly. “Goddamn full moon. I should have known.”

  23

  “YOU SEE THAT?” says Talaski, pointing up at the hall’s ceiling. “Yeah,” says Keller. “Some kind of attic stair, right?”

  “Yes. I want you to watch it while I check these rooms.” He waits until he sees Keller nod, then kicks the first door in. He

  goes in low, gun moving wherever he looks, pointing the same way. Sees a small bedroom, complete with a bed, dresser, nightstand and a TV mounted on the wall. Faded football banners and awards cover the wall to his right. A doorless closet gapes across the bed from him with only a handful of clothes hanging and a lot of empty hangers. No one is under the bed.

  “Clear,” he says, and exits the room. Takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. One more room and the attic to go. No sweat. At least he has a friend who just happens to be a trained soldier at his back. Just thinking about doing something like this with Dodd for a backup gives him the creeps. “You’re doing just great, Matt,” he says. “We’re almost through.”

  “No problem, Nick.” The next door isn’t shut firmly. A mere touch will probably open it, but he kicks anyway. No one is there. There is a king-size bed, two dressers, two nightstands and a couple of nice paintings. A soft, palegreen carpet covers the floor and cream colored drapes hang in front of two windows. There are two doors. One is open and leads to a large bathroom. There’s a sink, bathtub and toilet but no people in there. The second door must be a closet. The doors are wood and slatted. They are made to slide open on a track. If he kicks them, more than likely they won’t open, but will just shatter.

  The tension is building within him. He goes to one knee and looks under the bed. Nothing. In the background, almost below conscious thought, he feels arthritic pain in that knee as he stands back up, but manages to ignore it. He walks around the bed and pauses beside the doors. He grasps a small wooden knob and pulls. The door folds

  24

  accordion-style and he sees a big walk-in closet, shoes on the floor and clothes hanging on all three sides. Empty.

  “Clear,” he says again.

  Keller is still watching the attic door. There is a pull cord hanging from it. “I’ll pull it open,” he says, “and you be ready to shoot if you have to.”

  Talaski nods. Best to get this over quickly.

  Keller gives a mighty heave, probably overdoing it, and the door opens out and down into place. It is in fact an attic stair of good construction. It would probably take Keller’s three hundred pound plus frame.

  Nothing happens.

  “Dark up there,” says Keller.

  “Yeah,” Talaski answers. He points his flashlight up and sees a section of wood frame. “Be right back.” He takes the stairs as fast as he can.

  THERE IS ONE WINDOW IN HIS ROOM, no screen, just a window. It faces the back yard and a Norfolk pine tree. The tree is so close that its branches must be trimmed occasi
onally to keep them out of his room. The roots are also causing a problem with the house’s foundation. He knows this because it is a frequent argument between his parents. There never seems to be the money to get the tree cut down and removed. He doesn’t want this to happen anyway. He loves the sound the tree makes when the wind blows through its leaves.

  Down below, he hears the angry man kick in the door to his brother’s room. He knows it won’t be long before they find him. His shoes are tied and he has stuffed some extra clothes, a blanket and his pillow in his school backpack. After a moment’s hesitation, he stuffs the bear in along with the other stuff.

  His window is open and a little breeze stirs the curtain. “I won’t be afraid,” he whispers to himself. “I can do this.”

  25

  Somewhere below him, he hears another door bounce off a wall. He reaches out and puts his hands around a thick branch. He can also hear voices in the front yard, and pauses to listen to them. Just some adults yelling at each other. He swings a leg out, steadies himself, and then commits his weight with the other leg. Then the unimaginable happens—the branch snaps beneath his feet and he loses his grip. His stomach lurches as he falls backward…

  I N A MOMENT OR TWO, the crowd is gone, leaving only Bronte, Tracks and the two police officers, Dodd and Williams. The paramedics have entered the house, following the sergeant. Dodd has wandered over to his cruiser and is talking on a cell phone. Tracks is waiting for Bronte a half-block down by his car. Williams asked him to make a written statement and he has just finished it. He hands her the clipboard.

  “Thanks for the help,” says Williams, just as he starts to walk away. “It was just the truth, Officer.”

  “Why don’t you apply to the academy before its too late Bronte?”

  she asks.

  “Too late? What do you mean, Officer?” he asks, hearing the anger

  in his voice.