Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (8 page)

Twilight was fast falling toward night as he walked out onto the ice, testing each step gingerly before applying his weight. The winter had been cold, though, and the ice was thick. He was right; the tracks were there, leading right from the window at the back of the boathouse. A man’s boots, well treaded enough that the ridges in the sole were still visible when he blew the snow away. Given a few more hours, they would have been completely obliterated.

In his mind he could see the man coming across the ice in the twilight, early on enough in the storm that he’d be obscured from the sight of the other cabins that dotted the shoreline, but he could still make his way fairly easily. And he could see him waiting with the cunning patience of a natural hunter. The face on this hunter was one only too familiar to him. The cold Arctic gaze of Blackie Brindle, pale as the snow itself and twice as frozen. There was no direct proof and yet he sensed the man’s presence, no longer here, just the dark energy he left in his wake.

Emma was waiting, huddled by the half-open boathouse door. Her lips were blue with cold, the shadow of storm and night scooping hollows out beneath her eyes and cheekbones. She looked like a corpse herself, the bones too close to the surface of her fragile skin. He needed to get her out of the cold quickly.

“We’ll have to hole up in the cabin for the night,” he shouted over the whistle of the wind, his cheeks numb from the walk to the car and back. It was fiercely cold, but the towering white pines that grew down to the eastern shore of the lake would protect them from the worst of the wind.

Emma nodded, her own words lost on the wind and turned back one last time to look at her dead friend. He wanted to warn her not to do that, that to look back at a corpse was ill luck—that you risked taking the discontent of their spirit into your own by the act of seeing.

They followed their own footsteps back, the hollows already filling up over their ankles. They stamped their feet when they reached the tumbledown porch and went in the cabin.

Inside they found an old rusted bed frame with a lumpy and damp mattress on it. A little potbellied tin stove with a box of dry pine behind it, two half-burned candles thick with dust and another box filled with musty old newspapers. There were also two rickety chairs and a table with three legs. He had a book of matches in his pocket; for once he was grateful for his cigarette habit. He wasted no time in getting the stove lit, and they huddled near it, both chilled to the bone.

The full fury of the storm was over top them now, the wind shaking the frost-laden window panes. Drafts of cold air and small puffs of snow blew in through the logs. Casey stuffed the cracks with the old newspapers, his hands numb and clumsy.

By the time he was satisfied that he’d blocked out the worst of the wind, the fire had built up to a good blaze and it was warm in the old cabin. It was well built, and would serve to wait out the storm and the night. He thought of Pamela waiting for him to come home, torn between fury and fear, wondering why he didn’t call. There wasn’t much he could do, though; it would be near suicidal to attempt the long, treacherous drive back to Boston in the teeth of a fullblown snowstorm. It could not be helped. Though he doubted that the idea of him spending the night holed up in a cabin with one bed and a prostitute for company was going to be a point in his favor.

“We’ll have to dig out an’ then call the local police in the mornin’.” It was not a prospect that cheered Casey. When you had grown up Catholic in Belfast you developed a healthy aversion to law enforcement of any kind. He’d brought a measure of this skepticism across the sea with him, and so wasn’t thrilled about the questions that would have to be answered, and the detailed reports that would need to be filed.

Emma looked at him with a rather large dose of her own skepticism. “The cops ain’t gonna care. She was a hooker, dead whores don’t rank all that high on the police priority list. Getting killed is like an occupational hazard kinda thing, at least that’s what the cops seem to think.”

“But someone purposefully drew her here to an abandoned cabin in the woods. It was premeditated, that ought to...” he trailed off at the look of world-weary defeat that filled Emma’s eyes.

“I think you come from a hard neighborhood,” she said softly, “but you still don’t understand what you’re dealing with here. She wasn’t a person; she was property—a whore like me. As a human she has no value, but as a commodity she had plenty. Now that she’s dead,” she shrugged eloquently, “she’s worthless.”

Casey looked over at her. In the glow from the candles her silhouette was softened, and she appeared very young. As she must have once been, before Love Hagerty got his clutches into her.

He took a deep breath and the smell of blood flooded his senses. He had washed his hands in the snow, but knew his nails were still rimmed in red.

“I had an abortion. It was Rosemary who held my hand through that.”

“Aye,” Casey said quietly, his tone giving her the space to either tell him her story or not, as she chose. The recounting of life experience was often the only exorcism one could perform in the face of a violent death. Because no matter the reason, there was no making sense of such a death.

“I was nineteen—went to a back alley clinic, was this lady who did abortions in the evenings. Like after it was dark. I couldn’t have had a baby—I was doing heroin then and my whole life revolved around getting that Judas kiss everyday.”

“Judas kiss?”

She nodded, the fire sparking off the copper in her hair. “You think it’s your friend, it makes you feel good when nothing else can, it gets you through the day, makes life bearable. Until one day you realize you’re living for it; that it’s got claws so deep in you that you ain’t never really gonna get them out. And you will do anything for it.  I thought it was the only thing that had ever loved me unconditionally; it made me feel safe. Your view of the world and everything in it gets twisted, you see it all through the eye of the needle. I knew that was no life for a baby, and I wasn’t ready to give up the drug. But the drug always betrays you in the end, makes you do things you never thought you would, double-cross and hurt people you love. Steal, cheat and lie all to make certain you get your hit that day. So I had the abortion and I figured it was the right thing to do. But smack lies to you and justifies all your actions.”

“So what made ye quit?”

“How do you know I have?”

“Because ye don’t tend to wear overmuch in the clothing department, an’ I would have noticed fresh tracks did ye have them.”

She smiled, but it wasn’t a humorous expression. “You’d be surprised the places on your body a junkie can find to shoot up. But you’re right—I’m clean, have been for five years now. Cause I got knocked up again. And this time I did love something more than the smack. Rosemary was there for me the whole time. Cleaning up puke, sponging me down when I was hot, bundling me up when I was cold. Forcing broth down my throat when I was being the biggest pain in the ass you can imagine. God, I don’t think I slept for a year after I came off and then Jakey was born and
he
kept me up at night. When he got croup and I thought I was gonna’ totally lose my mind, Rosemary walked the hall with him nights. Walked a path right into the carpet.” She wiped at the tears that had spilled down her face, as though their presence angered her. “Did you ever have a friend like that? One who had your back no matter what?”

“Aye,” Casey smiled, “I did—once.”

“I thought you might have, you seem like a man that people could trust. I think it’s why Love Hagerty is afraid of you.”

Casey snorted. “Afraid of me? I don’t see why. The man’s got Southie zipped up so tight no one can breathe without his permission, an’ what he doesn’t hold the strings on his pals in the Bassarelli clan do. Besides how could ye know such a thing?”

“Well whores don’t inspire a lot of loyalty,” she said, with a bitterness that Casey knew was hard earned. “But people often use them as a shoulder, I hear things and I’ve got a long memory.” She sniffed, her nose running now that she was warm. He leaned forward and handed her a tissue from the stash Pamela had neatly placed in his inside coat pocket.

“I do wish ye’d quit callin’ yerself a whore.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s what I am. It’s honest, is all. I have no illusions about what I do. I don’t expect to wind up in some street version of Cinderella or anything.”

“It’s what ye do, it’s not necessarily what ye are,” Casey said. “I drive car an’ offload questionable cargo, does that mean the sum of me is drivin’ and haulin’ boxes?” He shrugged with a nonchalance he didn’t necessarily feel. “I am more than that, an’ so are you. No human bein’ is that simple, or can be summed up that tidily.”

“Are you for real?” She cocked her head, eyes bright with doubt. But the tough stance was gone and suddenly she seemed horribly fragile, a lost soul in a world that surely seemed like one of the interior circles of hell. “Because if you say that you don’t think of me that way, that you don’t just see a whore when you look at me, I’ll believe it, I’ll believe you.”

He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it gently, and his dark eyes met her own with a clear honesty. “Not for a minute have I thought of you that way. I see a woman, no more, no less.”

She laid a hand on his wool-clad leg, the fingers trailing northward in unmistakable invitation.

“I could use some warmth,” she said, “couldn’t you?”

He clasped her hands between his own, stilling her. He realized suddenly that the kiss on her hand might have been grossly misinterpreted. He also understood that this was a natural coin for her to deal in.

“Ye know I’m married, I don’t take that lightly.”

“Your wife doesn’t need to know,” she said, and he could feel her trembling beneath his hands.

“But
I
would know,” Casey said.

“We could just kiss...for you it’d be free,” she trailed off as he gave her a very stern look. Tears suddenly flooded into the topaz eyes, making them glitter like cat’s-eye in the firelight.

“Yer an attractive woman, an’ I’m flattered, but what ye don’t understand is that it wouldn’t matter who I was kissin’ or makin’ love to, I would still be kissin’ my wife, makin’ love to my wife. D’ye see what I’m sayin’?” he asked gently.

She nodded, the smoke-gold eyes filling with tears. “I hope she knows how lucky she is.”

“Aye,” he grimaced, thinking of how upset his wife likely was at this point. “I hope she knows it tomorrow, leastwise. Now ye’d best get some sleep, we’ve the devil of a day facin’ us tomorrow.”

He dragged the bed over near the stove, and then halved the blanket so she could wrap herself in it. He’d meant to lay the blanket over the dead woman, but when he’d realized they were stuck here for the night, he knew they needed it much worse than she did.

Emma huddled to one side. “There’s room for you. I promise to behave.”

“I’ll bide for a bit,” Casey said, “I’m not tired just now.” Which wasn’t strictly true, but he knew he could not sleep just yet. He sat in one of the chairs, alert in every cell and fiber of his being, the hairs on his arms still standing up, despite the glow of the potbellied stove.

Emma apparently was feeling some of this same current in the air, for she tossed and turned a bit before sighing and saying, “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”

“Why not? Yer safe enough. I’ll keep watch for the night. It’d have to be somethin’ supernatural to get through a storm such as this one.”

Emma looked toward the door as though she half expected some terrible spectre to come out of the blinding snow and howling winds. He shivered. He half expected it himself, truth be told.

“I—I’m used to the noise from the streets. It’s too quiet here. You have a good voice; I’ve heard you sing down at the Rose, sing something.”

“Have ye a favorite?” Casey asked, thinking a song might soothe his own mind.

“My mom used to sing this lovely one about living in marble halls and longing for a lost love. Do you know the one I’m talking about?”

“Aye I know it—it’s a sad one, are ye certain yer in the mood for it?”

“Yes,” she said, the domed lids half-closed over her eyes, making her look absurdly young and fragile in the sift of candle flame.

He started in low and soft on the gentle sway of notes. It was one his own mother had once sung to him. How he remembered this he did not know, most memories of his mother he had blocked out or lost in the wash of time. But the music remained.

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls
With vassals and serfs at my side...

The notes themselves were arranged like a slow waltz, danced alone after the lights had dimmed and the other revelers had gone home, and you were alone in the ballroom with the scent of dying flowers and regret for chances lost. His mother had sung it so, and he wondered what in her heart had infused the music with such pain that he could feel, even now so many years later, the lingerings left behind.

But I also dreamt (which pleased me most)
That you loved me still the same,
That you loved me,
You loved me, still the same...

Emma slept now, her breathing deep and relaxed. He was tired himself, could feel the fatigue of the day pulling on him, though he knew were he to close his eyes he would only see the image of the dead girl, cold and blue with ice crystals forming in her red curls. Nor did he want to face thoughts of the morning, of police and questions and the great dark danger he felt as heavy as the scent of blood in the air. And so he sang. For Emma, whose sleep was so often troubled, for himself, and the pain he felt for the Irish girl outside whose American dreams had come to ashes. He sang to drown the sound of wolves howling in the distance, and the hissing of ice against the windows. And last, just before his eyes closed, he sang for the mother who had once sung for him.

That you loved me
You loved me, still the same...