BILLIE MAE / Elle Andrews Patt
ONE
“I drownded.”
Andrea eased her eyes open in the dark to squint at Billie Mae Robbins.
All of six, with flaxen hair, Billie Mae had the bluest eyes south of a sunny sky. And she glowed, just a bit, as she stood next to the bed. As usual, she wore a white cotton nightgown, the kind that only went to the knees. Today, a vivid purple bruise crossed the midpoint of her throat, thin as wire, staining the skin below it in a lighter hue until it faded above her collarbone. And today, she was drenched. Andrea’s heart dropped.
“I don’t think you drowned,” Andrea murmured. Water dripped from the ends of Billie Mae’s hair, the drops vanishing as they fell. It might not mean anything. She didn’t want to wake Taka. The man lay sprawled over more than half her bed, but since he’d tracked and nailed a killer in a little over thirty-nine hours without sleep, she was letting him have more than his fair share. Plus he was big and pretty and threw a lot of body heat, a total plus during October in West Virginia.
“I drownded.”
She had this conversation with a dry Billie Mae three or four times a week. But rarely with a wet one.
“I drownded all by myself,” the little girl insisted.
Andrea rolled onto her side to face her. There was another conversation they had sometimes when Andrea made bacon, which she made more now than ever simply because it was fun to see Billie Mae laugh. But this particular conversation was solemn and grave and almost always took place just before dawn broke and filled the master bedroom with muted brightness. Keeping it normal, Andrea whispered back, “I don’t think you did.”
“I did,” Billie Mae shouted, stomping her bare foot, little fists clinched tight. Andrea flinched, even though she expected it and knew Taka couldn’t hear her.
“Where?”
She pointed out the window. Fed by a branch of the Elk River, manmade Lake Vickers lay a good half-mile away. After sunrise, Andrea knew, the lake might be visible through that window as a flat grey smudge beyond the fog-wreathed reds and yellows of the trees growing across all the yards downslope from her.
“Your mother strangled you in the bathtub, Billie Mae,” Andrea whispered. She made an effort to say it as a statement of fact, to not be mean, but it had been weeks upon weeks of this dialogue already. She’d move, but she loved both the house and the fifteen-minute commute south to downtown Charleston. The steep West Virginia hills above the flat river valley city demanded narrow switch-backing roads that often slowed rush hour traffic to a crawl. The discounted rent after the first time Billie Mae had woken her didn’t hurt either.
Billie Mae’s face crumpled, tears welled and then spilled onto her baby cheeks. She shook her head, her long, wet hair swinging. Andrea couldn’t ignore her. She lifted the covers, letting the cool air rush in, and got up. The hardwood floor was cold beneath her bare feet. She shivered. Taka grunted and grabbed at the blankets, pulling them back in close. There were still things she needed for the house. Throw rugs and a sleeper sofa were two of them.
Andrea padded out of the room. Sniffling, Billie Mae trailed her down the hall to the bathroom and climbed into the tub to pout while Andrea went about her morning routine for her near daily run. The claw-footed tub was not the one she died in. The landlord, Kenny, tore that one out years ago. Watching Billie Mae in the mirror as Billie Mae watched her brush her teeth, Andrea saw the exact moment she blipped out of existence, leaving behind a faint whiff of earthy damp and, Andrea already knew, a small puddle in the tub. She supposed she should be grateful that the miserable little spirit didn’t leave wet footprints on the hardwood floors. She’d make bacon later and see if that drew Billie Mae out in a better mood.
Andrea warmed up on her driveway, jumping jacks and walking lunges. Frost covered the lawns lining the narrow, rural cul-de-sac, one of three lying back to back across the shallow, rising flatland above Two Mile Creek to form her neighborhood. Her stalwart little house, covered in cedar siding, looked sturdy, the white shutters bright. Taka’s Yukon sat like a black monster behind her FX, snugged up in the carport. The little blue Infinity SUV was getting old, but she didn’t like the newer ones as much and it suited her work just fine.
Yellow leaves from the maple beyond the carport covered her car and drive, some drifting out to join up forces with the huge leaves from the ancient oak in the front yard. Maybe Taka would rake for her while she mulched the scraggly beds around the azaleas along the front of the house. Landlord Kenny mowed every week but left Andrea to keep the rest looking presentable.
She jogged down her street, but instead of crossing Timber Way, she opted for her longer route and turned right at the stop sign. Within a quarter mile, a cruiser whooshed past her, no sirens, but lights flashing. She slowed, hearing another coming behind and moved onto the grass of the nearest yard. Both turned left down Cooper, the twisting gravel track that ended at the public boat ramp for Lake Vickers.
Picking up her pace again Andrea crossed the street and ran down Cooper. The ME’s van blew past her in a cloud of dust. Close to the ramp a couple of people stood in their yards, newspapers in hand as they watched the activity. Walking again, Andrea wiped her lips, and the sweat from her temple. The van joined the cruisers and a sheriff’s Bronco parked to the left of the ramp, while a yellow Hummer and a black pick-up truck, both hitched to boat trailers, crowded the right side of the small lot at the end of the road. A cluster of officers and three civilians, two men and one woman, who kept wiping tears from her face, stood in front of the center of attention, a late-model bass boat cocked sideways to the ramp in the shallow mud. She recognized Eric, who was tying yellow tape to a tree, and waved to him.
He sauntered over, tape unspooling from one hand while he slid the other over his wind-blown hair to smooth it. “Hey, Andrea, you live near here?”
“Yeah, on Double Branch. What’s happened?”
The lake rippled in the light breeze, the water grey and foreboding. She’d swum across it once, on a dare, but it gave her a chill thinking of it now. The lowered sky said they’d be getting icy rain later in the day. In the distance three boats bobbed in and out of sight on the rough chop.
Following her gaze Eric said, “State stocked a good portion of the larger streams with trout a couple of weeks ago. Bass are still biting, too.”
Andrea lifted her chin towards the group by the ramp as the ME van’s stout red-faced driver joined them, clipboard in hand.
“Another kid. A lot fresher.”
“Damn,” Andrea muttered.
“Yeah,” Eric said to the ground. He glanced up as he started walking again. “Heard Taka was interested.”
“He is,” Andrea said, walking alongside him. Just days ago, Andrea had called Taka, amazed that Billie Mae had appeared that morning literally dripping what smelled like pond water, something she had never done before, and fixated on the view downslope. Later that day, a child, nearly skeletal, had been pulled from the lake, the case assigned to another detective. “I’m sure he can’t do anything now until he’s cleared again though.”
“That was a hell of a takedown last night."
Taka hadn’t said much when he showed up at her door, but she’d gotten some of the details from social media and the news. Taka had shot a suspect. It wasn’t the first time.
"Dave was there," Eric continued. "Said Taka was a damn bear.”
He’d be a damn growly bear this morning, too, and as mopey about this as Billie Mae... who had been soaking wet this morning.
“Thanks, Eric,” she said and left him to finish setting his perimeter. She retraced her steps home, forcing herself to run, even though she didn’t feel like it anymore.
At the house the aroma of fresh coffee soaked the air. Andrea found Taka in the kitchen, scrambling eggs, and listening to the little TV tucked into the corner near the stove, still wearing the shorts and ratty Army tee he’d slept in.
She hovered in the kitchen doorway as the reporters talked about the murder that led up to Taka’s pursuit of the suspect he ultimately shot. Although drug-related murders were becoming all too common in this part of West Virginia, they didn’t normally happen to pretty, young college students. Add the shooting of the suspect by unnamed cops and Saturday morning viewers with no place to go. The Charleston news anchors were almost giddy.
The victim, Deborah Watkins, was a junior at the University of Charleston. Taka wasn’t much of a morning person at the best of times. The coverage of the murder, murky video of the shoot-out, and footage of the suspect’s arrival at the hospital wouldn’t help today. She knew better than to congratulate him on not killing the guy.
“I’m okay,” he said without turning away from the stove. At six feet, Taka was shorter than Andrea’s little brother but bigger-boned, built solid. A result, he said, of the Cherokee blood contributed by his grandmother to a long linage of Scots-Irish-English stock. Since she could claim that heritage herself, Andrea thought it more likely the mix of Maori and African blood laid over the Asian on his father’s side. He’d recently taken up the term “person of color” seemed a lot happier when white people like her invariably asked about his heritage. Without mercy, he’d teased her about crushing on his dominant genes ever since they’d been paired up in science at Andrew Jackson Middle, up the road in Cross Lanes.
William Taka was Andrea’s best and oldest friend.
“Smells good in here,” she said, even as she was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness. “Was Tracy with you?” Detective Tracy Manners was Taka’s most frequent partner and workout buddy. Despite being constantly harassed for his name, he was one of the most affable, gentle men Andrea had ever met.
“Yeah. Got hit in the vest. He’s bruised, but fine.”
She slipped her arms around him, laying her head on his mid-back.
He patted her hands and finished cooking the eggs. When he turned off the stove and set the pan to one side, he turned and hugged her back hard. “What’s up?”
“Kid in the lake.”
Gripping her upper arms, he stepped back and held her away from him. “Another one?”
“Yeah, more recent.”
“Did Billie Mae show this morning?”
Andrea nodded. “Soaked, just like last time.”
“Eat up,” he said, letting go of her.
“Taka,” she said, but he was already down the hall, on the way to get dressed.
She pulled plates down, divided the eggs and dropped shredded cheese onto her portion. She poured coffee for both of them and then took her mug and her eggs to the kitchen table. Motion in the back yard beyond the large picture window caught her eye.
Billie Mae stood outside, still dripping wet.
Shocked, Andrea jumped. Her plate fell with a thunk onto the table. It overbalanced and crashed to the floor. She ripped the back door open and leapt over the two low steps onto the concrete patio. Billie Mae walked through the maples, threading between the rhododendrons. Deep red leaves dropped from the dogwoods to the ground as she passed under their spreading branches.
“What is it,” Taka hissed from the door. Andrea glanced back. Barefoot and shirtless, he held his raised Glock steady in both hands, the muzzle pointed towards the trees. He turned on one heel, smooth as ice, tracking Billie Mae’s progress.
“Can you see her?”
“No. Who?”
Andrea pointed. “Billie Mae.”
Taka lowered his gun. “No, the trees are moving though.” They were. They swayed in Billie Mae’s wake.
Andrea stepped onto the brittle, brown fall grass.
“Wait,” Taka said. “I need shoes.”
While Andrea waited on him, Billie Mae faded at the rear property line, a long wooded ditch that divided Andrea’s yard from her neighbor’s downslope. He came back out in boots and his Charleston Police Department windbreaker. They crunched to the back of the yard, ducking between the trees. Andrea tracked right while Taka tracked left.
A darker spot of blue under a settle of leaves at the foot of a maple near her next door neighbor’s four-board fence drew Andrea’s attention. She squatted and plucked the leaves back. The tiny blue Keds tennis shoe lay on its side. A streak of dirt stood out on its nearly new fabric. The white laces were untied, tangled with each other. She had no idea how it came to be there.
“Don’t touch it,” Taka said from over her shoulder, his shadow falling across her and drawing down the dread of gloom tickling her.
“Maybe it’s not—”
“Ever seen Billie Mae outside before?”
Andrea shook her head. “She was soaking wet.”
Kneeling, Taka dropped a hand on her back. “I can’t call it in, not until I talk to the guys at the lake. Can’t tell them your ghost gave us evidence.”
“You don’t even believe—”
“I believe in you.”
A churning ball of angst formed in Andrea’s chest. She never thought it mattered to her if Taka didn’t believe, but now she found the careful way he always spoke and the shuttered look he watched her with when she talked about Billie Mae did bother her. Would he rather believe she was psychic?
“Sorry,” he said, not for the first time these last few months.
“I don’t want to stay here by myself.”
He took her elbow as they stood. “It might be nothing. If it is related, there’s no reason to think anyone would be coming back for it, especially not during the day. But you don’t have to stay.”
They went back through the kitchen. Taka zipped up his windbreaker, swiped his keys from the counter, and they walked straight out to his Yukon.
At the lake spectators had gathered at Eric’s line of tape. The ME’s van was gone, but the detectives had shown up. Andrea stayed in the car while Taka took point and strode right into the scene without hesitation. The resulting intense huddle made Andrea nervous, with several glances being directed her way. And then Taka was shaking his head and shaking hands and then trudging back through the muddy gravel past the grim, silent boaters who’d found the body.
One of them reached out his hand and touched Taka’s arm. Taka turned, listened with a small frown creasing his brows, and then trotted back to the detectives. He waved at the Yukon. Andrea opened her door. He turned his hand over in a come-on gesture. She slammed the door and walked over, her belly squirreling.
“Kid didn’t have shoes, but boater man over there said he saw one fall from the body when they hooked and reeled it in,” Taka told her when she reached the small group of officers. “It sank, but he knows where. Marked the GPS for the investigation.”
“You know,” Dan Cozner said. “Even though TV shows get most of it wrong, they’re good for teaching that kind of shit. Did you forget your shirt?”
Taka glanced over at him, the corner of his lip quirking up. “It was dark blue or black,” he continued saying to Andrea. “The dive team’s on the way. You and I are going to go back and secure the scene at the house. They’re sending Deena out to us and Ted’ll be over later,” he said, pushing his thumb at a tall, dark haired guy Andrea had seen floating around at department functions.
“Okay,” she said. “You couldn’t tell me in the car?”
“We’re gonna wait until they launch. Make sure Eric doesn’t need help with crowd control until most of the vehicles are gone.”
They stood around talking about nothing while watching Cozner and his partner work. Eric poked fun at Taka for running out of the house without a shirt. Andrea wrapped her arms around herself, her sweatshirt not quite enough in the moist chill.
The CPD dive team arrived, a WCHS news van in its wake. Eric moved to intercept it while they pulled the tape for the van and then re-secured the perimeter. A reporter Andrea recognized from the Charleston Gazette-Mail crept along the gravel in her brown Honda and then wedged it out of the way behind the news van. Through the trees, Andrea could see half the neighborhood drive by on winding Timber Way above, but only one or two more walkers stopped to gawk.
When the techs were done processing the boat for anything that might have contaminated or compromised the body, the fishermen loaded it up on the Hummer’s trailer. Eric let them through the tape as the dive master backed his CPD Tahoe down the ramp to float the team’s sleek, flat, motor boat into the water. It took twenty minutes or so for them to launch. The GPS coordinates put them quickly out of sight and the little crowd of neighbors wandered off in twos and threes. Moving over to allow the cameraman to better frame the ramp, the WCHS reporter started yet another take. Taka nodded over at Andrea. She ducked under the tape and turned, waiting for him to catch up.
“Detective Taka, a word?” the Gazette reporter called out.
He shook his head and kept walking.
“Sir, Detective Taka, about the shooting,” she persisted, trotting over.
“No comment,” Taka growled.
“Did you know the suspect was Councilman Miller’s nephew?”
“No comment.”
The reporter stared hard at Andrea, trying to place her. Andrea looked down, letting her hair fall over her face, hoping she wouldn’t remember Andrea contributed research to a cold case article she wrote the previous year. Getting in the Yukon’s passenger side, Andrea slammed her door at the same time Taka slammed his. He started it up and backed away, the reporter following for several strides until he gunned forward again in a three point turn.
“Our names weren’t released,” he bitched.
“You aren’t hard to recognize, Taka. Did you know he was Miller’s nephew?”
“Not until afterwards.”
Which begged another question. Taka lived with his girlfriend, Melinda. She was tall like Andrea, but built on a tiny bird’s frame topped with a luxurious mane of fake red hair. Also unlike Andrea, she was frilly and girly and had a viper’s tongue installed in place of her absent compassion. Apparently there were other compensating factors, but hopefully Taka would tire of them sooner rather than later.
“Why’d you come to my place last night?”
“I lost my keys,” he mumbled. He kept both her key and his condo key on the same fob, but separate from his truck and office keys. He had issues. Nothing could make her carry two separate key rings. She’d never have the right set.
No wonder he’d woken her up last night to let him in. She’d thought he was just afraid she’d shoot him for an intruder since she wasn’t expecting him. Rolling her eyes, Andrea said, “Her highness wouldn’t let you in if you knocked?”
“She sleeps with ear plugs and a white noise machine. I didn’t even try.”
Taka was a light sleeper and while he didn’t tuck his gun under his pillow, because he wasn’t an idiot, he always kept it close. Each of his three stints in inter-agency undercover had changed him, made him a darker, edgier, older version of the Taka he used to be.
“How can you sleep with all that loud shush-shush going on?”
“I don’t,” he said, glancing over at her.
That explained a lot, actually, including the heavy shadows under his eyes that eight hours of unusual-for-him deep sleep hadn’t even touched.
Charleston cops drew their weapons regularly, but most retired without ever discharging one outside the range, let alone to shoot someone. In eleven years with the department, Taka already had three shoots on his record, no deaths. Although they’d all been justified, the department would be worrying about his liability at this point. If anyone else noticed, if they thought fatigue had played a factor in escalating the pursuit, the CPD’s internal Professional Standards Division, Charleston’s version of Internal Affairs, would use it against him.
“Does this make four?” she asked.
He turned into her drive. “Yeah. Second highest now. Ronnie Horton has seven,” he said, staring into Andrea’s carport as he shut the truck off.
“Did you empty your trash this morning?”
“Yesterday, why?” Andrea said, craning her neck to see what he was looking at. A loosely tied white bag lay on the ground beside her can. “That’s not mine, Taka.”
“Stay here,” he said and got out, easing his door shut. He drew the concealed Glock he always carried off-duty, and crept into the carport, turning his head left, right, and up. Andrea looked up, too, but the carport roof was flat- there wasn’t much to see. The yards to either side were empty of people.
Taka made an abortive move at the bag and then leaped back, arms flailing. Andrea jumped out of the Yukon without thinking. Taka caught his balance and put his hand out to stop her. “Snake,” he panted.
ONE
“I drownded.”
Andrea eased her eyes open in the dark to squint at Billie Mae Robbins.
All of six, with flaxen hair, Billie Mae had the bluest eyes south of a sunny sky. And she glowed, just a bit, as she stood next to the bed. As usual, she wore a white cotton nightgown, the kind that only went to the knees. Today, a vivid purple bruise crossed the midpoint of her throat, thin as wire, staining the skin below it in a lighter hue until it faded above her collarbone. And today, she was drenched. Andrea’s heart dropped.
“I don’t think you drowned,” Andrea murmured. Water dripped from the ends of Billie Mae’s hair, the drops vanishing as they fell. It might not mean anything. She didn’t want to wake Taka. The man lay sprawled over more than half her bed, but since he’d tracked and nailed a killer in a little over thirty-nine hours without sleep, she was letting him have more than his fair share. Plus he was big and pretty and threw a lot of body heat, a total plus during October in West Virginia.
“I drownded.”
She had this conversation with a dry Billie Mae three or four times a week. But rarely with a wet one.
“I drownded all by myself,” the little girl insisted.
Andrea rolled onto her side to face her. There was another conversation they had sometimes when Andrea made bacon, which she made more now than ever simply because it was fun to see Billie Mae laugh. But this particular conversation was solemn and grave and almost always took place just before dawn broke and filled the master bedroom with muted brightness. Keeping it normal, Andrea whispered back, “I don’t think you did.”
“I did,” Billie Mae shouted, stomping her bare foot, little fists clinched tight. Andrea flinched, even though she expected it and knew Taka couldn’t hear her.
“Where?”
She pointed out the window. Fed by a branch of the Elk River, manmade Lake Vickers lay a good half-mile away. After sunrise, Andrea knew, the lake might be visible through that window as a flat grey smudge beyond the fog-wreathed reds and yellows of the trees growing across all the yards downslope from her.
“Your mother strangled you in the bathtub, Billie Mae,” Andrea whispered. She made an effort to say it as a statement of fact, to not be mean, but it had been weeks upon weeks of this dialogue already. She’d move, but she loved both the house and the fifteen-minute commute south to downtown Charleston. The steep West Virginia hills above the flat river valley city demanded narrow switch-backing roads that often slowed rush hour traffic to a crawl. The discounted rent after the first time Billie Mae had woken her didn’t hurt either.
Billie Mae’s face crumpled, tears welled and then spilled onto her baby cheeks. She shook her head, her long, wet hair swinging. Andrea couldn’t ignore her. She lifted the covers, letting the cool air rush in, and got up. The hardwood floor was cold beneath her bare feet. She shivered. Taka grunted and grabbed at the blankets, pulling them back in close. There were still things she needed for the house. Throw rugs and a sleeper sofa were two of them.
Andrea padded out of the room. Sniffling, Billie Mae trailed her down the hall to the bathroom and climbed into the tub to pout while Andrea went about her morning routine for her near daily run. The claw-footed tub was not the one she died in. The landlord, Kenny, tore that one out years ago. Watching Billie Mae in the mirror as Billie Mae watched her brush her teeth, Andrea saw the exact moment she blipped out of existence, leaving behind a faint whiff of earthy damp and, Andrea already knew, a small puddle in the tub. She supposed she should be grateful that the miserable little spirit didn’t leave wet footprints on the hardwood floors. She’d make bacon later and see if that drew Billie Mae out in a better mood.
Andrea warmed up on her driveway, jumping jacks and walking lunges. Frost covered the lawns lining the narrow, rural cul-de-sac, one of three lying back to back across the shallow, rising flatland above Two Mile Creek to form her neighborhood. Her stalwart little house, covered in cedar siding, looked sturdy, the white shutters bright. Taka’s Yukon sat like a black monster behind her FX, snugged up in the carport. The little blue Infinity SUV was getting old, but she didn’t like the newer ones as much and it suited her work just fine.
Yellow leaves from the maple beyond the carport covered her car and drive, some drifting out to join up forces with the huge leaves from the ancient oak in the front yard. Maybe Taka would rake for her while she mulched the scraggly beds around the azaleas along the front of the house. Landlord Kenny mowed every week but left Andrea to keep the rest looking presentable.
She jogged down her street, but instead of crossing Timber Way, she opted for her longer route and turned right at the stop sign. Within a quarter mile, a cruiser whooshed past her, no sirens, but lights flashing. She slowed, hearing another coming behind and moved onto the grass of the nearest yard. Both turned left down Cooper, the twisting gravel track that ended at the public boat ramp for Lake Vickers.
Picking up her pace again Andrea crossed the street and ran down Cooper. The ME’s van blew past her in a cloud of dust. Close to the ramp a couple of people stood in their yards, newspapers in hand as they watched the activity. Walking again, Andrea wiped her lips, and the sweat from her temple. The van joined the cruisers and a sheriff’s Bronco parked to the left of the ramp, while a yellow Hummer and a black pick-up truck, both hitched to boat trailers, crowded the right side of the small lot at the end of the road. A cluster of officers and three civilians, two men and one woman, who kept wiping tears from her face, stood in front of the center of attention, a late-model bass boat cocked sideways to the ramp in the shallow mud. She recognized Eric, who was tying yellow tape to a tree, and waved to him.
He sauntered over, tape unspooling from one hand while he slid the other over his wind-blown hair to smooth it. “Hey, Andrea, you live near here?”
“Yeah, on Double Branch. What’s happened?”
The lake rippled in the light breeze, the water grey and foreboding. She’d swum across it once, on a dare, but it gave her a chill thinking of it now. The lowered sky said they’d be getting icy rain later in the day. In the distance three boats bobbed in and out of sight on the rough chop.
Following her gaze Eric said, “State stocked a good portion of the larger streams with trout a couple of weeks ago. Bass are still biting, too.”
Andrea lifted her chin towards the group by the ramp as the ME van’s stout red-faced driver joined them, clipboard in hand.
“Another kid. A lot fresher.”
“Damn,” Andrea muttered.
“Yeah,” Eric said to the ground. He glanced up as he started walking again. “Heard Taka was interested.”
“He is,” Andrea said, walking alongside him. Just days ago, Andrea had called Taka, amazed that Billie Mae had appeared that morning literally dripping what smelled like pond water, something she had never done before, and fixated on the view downslope. Later that day, a child, nearly skeletal, had been pulled from the lake, the case assigned to another detective. “I’m sure he can’t do anything now until he’s cleared again though.”
“That was a hell of a takedown last night."
Taka hadn’t said much when he showed up at her door, but she’d gotten some of the details from social media and the news. Taka had shot a suspect. It wasn’t the first time.
"Dave was there," Eric continued. "Said Taka was a damn bear.”
He’d be a damn growly bear this morning, too, and as mopey about this as Billie Mae... who had been soaking wet this morning.
“Thanks, Eric,” she said and left him to finish setting his perimeter. She retraced her steps home, forcing herself to run, even though she didn’t feel like it anymore.
At the house the aroma of fresh coffee soaked the air. Andrea found Taka in the kitchen, scrambling eggs, and listening to the little TV tucked into the corner near the stove, still wearing the shorts and ratty Army tee he’d slept in.
She hovered in the kitchen doorway as the reporters talked about the murder that led up to Taka’s pursuit of the suspect he ultimately shot. Although drug-related murders were becoming all too common in this part of West Virginia, they didn’t normally happen to pretty, young college students. Add the shooting of the suspect by unnamed cops and Saturday morning viewers with no place to go. The Charleston news anchors were almost giddy.
The victim, Deborah Watkins, was a junior at the University of Charleston. Taka wasn’t much of a morning person at the best of times. The coverage of the murder, murky video of the shoot-out, and footage of the suspect’s arrival at the hospital wouldn’t help today. She knew better than to congratulate him on not killing the guy.
“I’m okay,” he said without turning away from the stove. At six feet, Taka was shorter than Andrea’s little brother but bigger-boned, built solid. A result, he said, of the Cherokee blood contributed by his grandmother to a long linage of Scots-Irish-English stock. Since she could claim that heritage herself, Andrea thought it more likely the mix of Maori and African blood laid over the Asian on his father’s side. He’d recently taken up the term “person of color” seemed a lot happier when white people like her invariably asked about his heritage. Without mercy, he’d teased her about crushing on his dominant genes ever since they’d been paired up in science at Andrew Jackson Middle, up the road in Cross Lanes.
William Taka was Andrea’s best and oldest friend.
“Smells good in here,” she said, even as she was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness. “Was Tracy with you?” Detective Tracy Manners was Taka’s most frequent partner and workout buddy. Despite being constantly harassed for his name, he was one of the most affable, gentle men Andrea had ever met.
“Yeah. Got hit in the vest. He’s bruised, but fine.”
She slipped her arms around him, laying her head on his mid-back.
He patted her hands and finished cooking the eggs. When he turned off the stove and set the pan to one side, he turned and hugged her back hard. “What’s up?”
“Kid in the lake.”
Gripping her upper arms, he stepped back and held her away from him. “Another one?”
“Yeah, more recent.”
“Did Billie Mae show this morning?”
Andrea nodded. “Soaked, just like last time.”
“Eat up,” he said, letting go of her.
“Taka,” she said, but he was already down the hall, on the way to get dressed.
She pulled plates down, divided the eggs and dropped shredded cheese onto her portion. She poured coffee for both of them and then took her mug and her eggs to the kitchen table. Motion in the back yard beyond the large picture window caught her eye.
Billie Mae stood outside, still dripping wet.
Shocked, Andrea jumped. Her plate fell with a thunk onto the table. It overbalanced and crashed to the floor. She ripped the back door open and leapt over the two low steps onto the concrete patio. Billie Mae walked through the maples, threading between the rhododendrons. Deep red leaves dropped from the dogwoods to the ground as she passed under their spreading branches.
“What is it,” Taka hissed from the door. Andrea glanced back. Barefoot and shirtless, he held his raised Glock steady in both hands, the muzzle pointed towards the trees. He turned on one heel, smooth as ice, tracking Billie Mae’s progress.
“Can you see her?”
“No. Who?”
Andrea pointed. “Billie Mae.”
Taka lowered his gun. “No, the trees are moving though.” They were. They swayed in Billie Mae’s wake.
Andrea stepped onto the brittle, brown fall grass.
“Wait,” Taka said. “I need shoes.”
While Andrea waited on him, Billie Mae faded at the rear property line, a long wooded ditch that divided Andrea’s yard from her neighbor’s downslope. He came back out in boots and his Charleston Police Department windbreaker. They crunched to the back of the yard, ducking between the trees. Andrea tracked right while Taka tracked left.
A darker spot of blue under a settle of leaves at the foot of a maple near her next door neighbor’s four-board fence drew Andrea’s attention. She squatted and plucked the leaves back. The tiny blue Keds tennis shoe lay on its side. A streak of dirt stood out on its nearly new fabric. The white laces were untied, tangled with each other. She had no idea how it came to be there.
“Don’t touch it,” Taka said from over her shoulder, his shadow falling across her and drawing down the dread of gloom tickling her.
“Maybe it’s not—”
“Ever seen Billie Mae outside before?”
Andrea shook her head. “She was soaking wet.”
Kneeling, Taka dropped a hand on her back. “I can’t call it in, not until I talk to the guys at the lake. Can’t tell them your ghost gave us evidence.”
“You don’t even believe—”
“I believe in you.”
A churning ball of angst formed in Andrea’s chest. She never thought it mattered to her if Taka didn’t believe, but now she found the careful way he always spoke and the shuttered look he watched her with when she talked about Billie Mae did bother her. Would he rather believe she was psychic?
“Sorry,” he said, not for the first time these last few months.
“I don’t want to stay here by myself.”
He took her elbow as they stood. “It might be nothing. If it is related, there’s no reason to think anyone would be coming back for it, especially not during the day. But you don’t have to stay.”
They went back through the kitchen. Taka zipped up his windbreaker, swiped his keys from the counter, and they walked straight out to his Yukon.
At the lake spectators had gathered at Eric’s line of tape. The ME’s van was gone, but the detectives had shown up. Andrea stayed in the car while Taka took point and strode right into the scene without hesitation. The resulting intense huddle made Andrea nervous, with several glances being directed her way. And then Taka was shaking his head and shaking hands and then trudging back through the muddy gravel past the grim, silent boaters who’d found the body.
One of them reached out his hand and touched Taka’s arm. Taka turned, listened with a small frown creasing his brows, and then trotted back to the detectives. He waved at the Yukon. Andrea opened her door. He turned his hand over in a come-on gesture. She slammed the door and walked over, her belly squirreling.
“Kid didn’t have shoes, but boater man over there said he saw one fall from the body when they hooked and reeled it in,” Taka told her when she reached the small group of officers. “It sank, but he knows where. Marked the GPS for the investigation.”
“You know,” Dan Cozner said. “Even though TV shows get most of it wrong, they’re good for teaching that kind of shit. Did you forget your shirt?”
Taka glanced over at him, the corner of his lip quirking up. “It was dark blue or black,” he continued saying to Andrea. “The dive team’s on the way. You and I are going to go back and secure the scene at the house. They’re sending Deena out to us and Ted’ll be over later,” he said, pushing his thumb at a tall, dark haired guy Andrea had seen floating around at department functions.
“Okay,” she said. “You couldn’t tell me in the car?”
“We’re gonna wait until they launch. Make sure Eric doesn’t need help with crowd control until most of the vehicles are gone.”
They stood around talking about nothing while watching Cozner and his partner work. Eric poked fun at Taka for running out of the house without a shirt. Andrea wrapped her arms around herself, her sweatshirt not quite enough in the moist chill.
The CPD dive team arrived, a WCHS news van in its wake. Eric moved to intercept it while they pulled the tape for the van and then re-secured the perimeter. A reporter Andrea recognized from the Charleston Gazette-Mail crept along the gravel in her brown Honda and then wedged it out of the way behind the news van. Through the trees, Andrea could see half the neighborhood drive by on winding Timber Way above, but only one or two more walkers stopped to gawk.
When the techs were done processing the boat for anything that might have contaminated or compromised the body, the fishermen loaded it up on the Hummer’s trailer. Eric let them through the tape as the dive master backed his CPD Tahoe down the ramp to float the team’s sleek, flat, motor boat into the water. It took twenty minutes or so for them to launch. The GPS coordinates put them quickly out of sight and the little crowd of neighbors wandered off in twos and threes. Moving over to allow the cameraman to better frame the ramp, the WCHS reporter started yet another take. Taka nodded over at Andrea. She ducked under the tape and turned, waiting for him to catch up.
“Detective Taka, a word?” the Gazette reporter called out.
He shook his head and kept walking.
“Sir, Detective Taka, about the shooting,” she persisted, trotting over.
“No comment,” Taka growled.
“Did you know the suspect was Councilman Miller’s nephew?”
“No comment.”
The reporter stared hard at Andrea, trying to place her. Andrea looked down, letting her hair fall over her face, hoping she wouldn’t remember Andrea contributed research to a cold case article she wrote the previous year. Getting in the Yukon’s passenger side, Andrea slammed her door at the same time Taka slammed his. He started it up and backed away, the reporter following for several strides until he gunned forward again in a three point turn.
“Our names weren’t released,” he bitched.
“You aren’t hard to recognize, Taka. Did you know he was Miller’s nephew?”
“Not until afterwards.”
Which begged another question. Taka lived with his girlfriend, Melinda. She was tall like Andrea, but built on a tiny bird’s frame topped with a luxurious mane of fake red hair. Also unlike Andrea, she was frilly and girly and had a viper’s tongue installed in place of her absent compassion. Apparently there were other compensating factors, but hopefully Taka would tire of them sooner rather than later.
“Why’d you come to my place last night?”
“I lost my keys,” he mumbled. He kept both her key and his condo key on the same fob, but separate from his truck and office keys. He had issues. Nothing could make her carry two separate key rings. She’d never have the right set.
No wonder he’d woken her up last night to let him in. She’d thought he was just afraid she’d shoot him for an intruder since she wasn’t expecting him. Rolling her eyes, Andrea said, “Her highness wouldn’t let you in if you knocked?”
“She sleeps with ear plugs and a white noise machine. I didn’t even try.”
Taka was a light sleeper and while he didn’t tuck his gun under his pillow, because he wasn’t an idiot, he always kept it close. Each of his three stints in inter-agency undercover had changed him, made him a darker, edgier, older version of the Taka he used to be.
“How can you sleep with all that loud shush-shush going on?”
“I don’t,” he said, glancing over at her.
That explained a lot, actually, including the heavy shadows under his eyes that eight hours of unusual-for-him deep sleep hadn’t even touched.
Charleston cops drew their weapons regularly, but most retired without ever discharging one outside the range, let alone to shoot someone. In eleven years with the department, Taka already had three shoots on his record, no deaths. Although they’d all been justified, the department would be worrying about his liability at this point. If anyone else noticed, if they thought fatigue had played a factor in escalating the pursuit, the CPD’s internal Professional Standards Division, Charleston’s version of Internal Affairs, would use it against him.
“Does this make four?” she asked.
He turned into her drive. “Yeah. Second highest now. Ronnie Horton has seven,” he said, staring into Andrea’s carport as he shut the truck off.
“Did you empty your trash this morning?”
“Yesterday, why?” Andrea said, craning her neck to see what he was looking at. A loosely tied white bag lay on the ground beside her can. “That’s not mine, Taka.”
“Stay here,” he said and got out, easing his door shut. He drew the concealed Glock he always carried off-duty, and crept into the carport, turning his head left, right, and up. Andrea looked up, too, but the carport roof was flat- there wasn’t much to see. The yards to either side were empty of people.
Taka made an abortive move at the bag and then leaped back, arms flailing. Andrea jumped out of the Yukon without thinking. Taka caught his balance and put his hand out to stop her. “Snake,” he panted.