GHOSTS OF VICTIMS PAST
THERE’S NOTHING LIKE a couple days, some easy jobs, and a little bit of self-deprecation to make you forget about the piercing green eyes and enticing grin of a certain nosy─yet intriguingly seductive in her own weird, talkative, highly intrusive personality kinda way─reporter.
Or not.
Emma Green’s attempt to manipulate me the other day might’ve failed, but the lingering effect of her flirtatious tone and inquisitive disposition has, unfortunately, struck a chord with me.
A chord that’s very much in need of a fucking tuning, considering the fact that rubbing one out didn’t get her out of my head. Apparently, a late night visit to Marty Sweetwater’s apartment didn’t either, and she may or may not think I’m into role play now since I accidentally called her Emma during sex.
But I digress.
It’s kinda pissing me off, truthfully. That and the fact she and my brother seemed to hit it off so easily. I’m pretty sure Mikey would’ve liked her, too.
Talk to me, Jackie.
I force the sound of his voice out of my head as I smear the fog from the bathroom mirror. The dark glare of a villain engraved high into my left peck grabs my attention. Its sinister smirk judges me.
He resembles a darker, more twisted version of the Joker from a deck of cards, with a twinge of the Dark Knight’s adversary bleeding through in his expression. People read into what he means, and I don’t correct them. The truth is, he’s a reminder of what I am and what I’m not, and that’s none of their fucking business.
The sound of Marty Sweetwater’s earlier news segment rerun bleeds in from the other room when I start to brush my teeth. It’s enough to keep me from sinking into what is quickly becoming sulk mode and more along the lines of the much needed P.I. mode.
Before I hopped into the shower this morning, I heard the tail end of Donnie Leary’s funeral announcement. Now I’m getting all the deets. It’s being held in a few short hours at Redemption’s South End Cemetery. Good to know, but why in the hell are they making this a segment? It’s not like he was a big player. He wasn’t even a medium player.
The next words out of Sweetwater’s mouth answer my question. They needed a reason to bring up Thomas Flint and his clan of assholes again.
“The gang is known to be in connection with much of the drug distribution that’s infiltrating the area. Flint is said to be personally responsible for the increasing number of high school dropouts in the past two years by recruiting teenagers into his circle of crime.”
Dun, dun, dunnnnnn.
Frustrated with the amount of attention this guy gets lately, I turn off the boob-tube, toss the remote, and stumble down the hallway. I’ve got to find myself something to wear today.
My closet’s full of a lot of the same shit so it doesn’t take me long to find a decent shirt, socks, and jeans to walk around in. I push my feet into some shoes on my way to the kitchen. After I dole out food for Frodo to find later, I slide my Smith & Wesson into its holster. I nab the cigarette I left sitting on the coffee table last night, just in case, and head out to the car with one thought managing to nag at the back of my mind.
Donnie Leary.
X X X
Breathe, Stiles.
I hadn’t planned on paying my respects to the kid, yet here I am, a good forty to forty-five minutes away from my office and headed straight toward the one place I shouldn’t be.
Go figure.
I park the car about a quarter mile away from the burial site and head up a familiar hill to check things out from afar.
An uncomfortable stiffness begins to creep into every inch of me the closer I get to where Donnie Leary is about to be put into the ground. It could be the darkened skies putting me in a bad mood. Maybe it’s the cold weather. Or it could be guilt for not visiting this place often enough over the past decade.
Mikey’s gravestone is playing at the edges of my periphery I don’t dare look in its direction, though. That’s asking for a whole bunch of pain I don’t have the will or the want to deal with right now.
Instead, for the millionth time, just today, I question my decision-making skills from a few nights ago. I’m not sure I have a right to even be here, but it’s too late now. So I trudge the rest of the way up the hill and take a spot behind an old maple tree.
When I look down onto the scene below, my gut is shaky. A tailspin of memories are hurled at me of another funeral that happened on this property back when I was barely considered an adult.
It didn’t go so well, but then again, what funeral does?
“What the hell are you doing here?”
My father’s voice echoes inside my mind while I try to focus on the current burial that’s about to happen. It doesn’t work. All the confusion, anger, frustration, and regret I had that day takes a hold of me all over again.
“I didn’t mean for—”