Instead of any reply, they slammed the door. “If I were to hang around for a while, you would grow to love me!” I yelled at where the door had just been.
I'd been left in the middle of a playground, a few blocks away from where I knew my job would be. A dirt bike that had seen better days—hell, maybe even better decades—was lying in the dirt in front of me. I guess I was biking the rest of the way.
I yanked a handle free out of the sucking mud that didn't particularly want to let go. Wasn’t there a drought, right now? Yet, here I was, smack in the only mud pile within sight.
I looked around and saw some kids playing baseball further away on the playground. They were completely unaware of me, even as I had to duck to avoid getting hit by their ball. I didn't think that had gone unnoticed by the guards either. They probably wanted me to get pegged in the head. I hopped on my so aptly named dirt bike and started pedaling away.
The house was right where I'd thought. It was a yellow ranch with dingy, white crooked shutters. It had an overgrown lawn, more weeds than grass.
I rode around to the side and leaned my bike up against the house. It was ten to twelve as I approached the side door. And older man sat at the table while a younger woman, who I knew was his daughter and soon to be murderer, moved about the kitchen.
I stood there for a moment, looking in the screen door, making sure they wouldn't notice me. When she walked toward where I stood and looked outside, right past me, I knew I was in the clear. It was such an odd thing, being right there but invisible to her. She stepped away, her worn flip flops slapping her calloused heels as she walked back to where the man sat at the table.
I opened the door and walked in. My hand was shaking slightly as I shut the door. The woman was quite large and I wasn't sure how I'd fare in a fight. Track marks ran up and down her arms and I knew drug addicts could often be quite tough. I'd defended quite a few in court, but as their attorney, they'd had motivation to play nice.
“Now, Dad, I'm going to take this and cash so I can buy things for the house.” She pushed a greasy strand of hair behind her ear and I wondered when she’d showered last. She looked at the check in her hand as she stood next to him by the table.
I walked over to where her purse sat on the counter and was about to riffle through it for the cyanide when he spoke.
“Hello.”
I swung around to see the older man staring directly at me.
“You can see me?” I was ready to grab a knife to protect myself from the attack surely to come from the daughter, but she looked right past me when she glanced around the room.
“Who are you talking to?” she asked him.
“Her,” he said and pointed to me.
“You've completely lost it. You're lucky I don't stick you in a home.” The daughter went back to rifling through a pile of mail on the table.
I shook my head. “She can't put you in a home,” I said to the man. “She wants your Social Security checks. How come you can see me?”
He shrugged.
The daughter stashed the check in her pocket as she opened another piece of mail that probably wasn’t hers and walked in the other room.
“Are you here for me?” he asked.
I knew exactly what he meant.
“No.”
“For her?”
“Not the way you think. I'm not killing anyone. I'm not Death.” Not today, anyway.
I dug into her purse and found the cyanide.
“Goodbye,” I said. I left the house, but I knew my job wasn't done.
I went to her car parked in the driveway. The doors were open and I lifted up the passenger seat mat. A small packet of off white powder was there. I took it and placed it on the back dashboard. I walked over to the back of her car and gave it a little tap before I hopped back on my bike and rode to the playground.
For reasons I'd never be able to explain to any sane human being, I knew after she left there, she would get pulled over a little less than a mile away for a bad brake light. Upon the officer approaching the vehicle, he would spot the bag of heroin through the back windshield.
Between her probation being violated and possession of an illegal substance, she would be incarcerated and spend the next three years in jail. The entire time she’d be wondering how the bag got there when she thought she'd stashed it under the rug.
I didn't know what would happen to the man but I hoped he’d find peace.
Chapter Nineteen
I hadn't seen Fate at all, that night. I knew he'd been there from the dent in his pillow. So when I got in the office the next morning, I went straight to Harold. I knocked on his open door to get his attention.
“Yes?” he said and waved me in, not bothering to look up, but he seldom did.
“Something odd happened.” I slumped into one of his chairs.
He looked up briefly, shook his head and looked back down at his papers. “I’m not surprised.”
“I went on a job yesterday—”
“Alone?” His head perked back up.
“Yes.”
He looked me over, nodded and then looked down again.
“There was an older man there and even though his daughter didn't see me, he did.”
“Close to death. When humans start straddling the line, they sometimes pick up on us.”
“Ah.” I leaned back in the chair.
“How are things going?”
I picked up a pen from his desk and started nibbling. My quasi partner was a bastard, I had an old guy who looked like he shouldn't even be breathing who stalked me, my murderer had been keeping tabs on me from childhood and the door guys hated my guts and made it their purpose in life to have me wade through dirty gully water and sink in mud piles.
“It could be worse.” Technically, it could be. I still had pizza and coffee, after all.
Harold looked up at the exact minute a slip of paper appeared in my lap.
Maxwell Stein, Fort Myers Beach Pier
“What is that?”
I jammed the paper in my pocket. “Huh?”
“That paper! Give it to me.” He stood, leaned over the desk and pointed to my pocket.
“Oh, that? It's just my notes.” I stood and started edging toward the door.
“No, it isn't. I saw that show up. It should've come to me. That's my note. I get the notes.”
“Harold, I don't know what you're talking about. I pulled that piece out of my pocket.” I just kept shaking my head, as I got closer to exiting his office, hoping he wouldn't follow me.
“You're leaving at the end of your trial, right?”
“Yes. No worries there.”
I could see him deciding whether it was worth pursuing the paper and then he finally slumped back into his seat with a scowling face.
I opened my phone and speed dialed Fate as soon as I got out of hearing distance. “Meet me in front of the office.”
***
“What is that?”
I handed Fate the piece of paper. He looked down and then back to me.
“Harold give this to you?”
“No.”
“Then where did you get it?”
“I just got it.”
“How?”
“It just came to me.”
“But why are you getting memos?” He was holding the paper in front of my face.
“Back off. I don't know why, but I did and I bet this is his target.” I ripped the note from his fingers. “Are you in or should I find this guy alone?”
He pulled the slip from my fingers. “Come on,” he yelled, walking briskly toward his car.
“Where we driving?”
“I want to drop my car off at my house.”
“The Jinxes are upstairs. Why not have the kids drive it?” I already knew the answer. He probably didn't like them to drive his car, but it was fine for my Honda.
It didn't take long to drop it off and pull up a picture of the guy online so we could make sure we’d recognize him.
I let Fate make the call for the door guys, hoping they wouldn’t realize I was with him until after the door was open.
It didn’t work. The door started opening oddly from the bottom up but stopped about a foot and a half off the ground.
“What the hell?” Fate asked, walking closer and bending down and trying to yank the door up. He turned to me. “What's the deal with this?”
“Ask them,” I said pointing to the guards.
“They don't speak.” He turned toward me, hands on hips.
“They point.”