Dead. Another body. Dead.
I swallow the acid clawing its way up my throat.
Mom used to tell me she broke into a million scattered shards when the cops would arrive on her doorstep for me. A million scattered fragments that couldn't be put back together.
I never understood, until now.
I'm here, not because of something I'd done, but because I'm the perfect scapegoat. I did the one thing I knew I shouldn't have done, stepped directly in the middle of something I should have left alone, and now I'm paying the price.
Donny and Alexius are partners in every sense of the word, both life and business have become so intertwined, so connected that it sometimes feels impossible to sense where I belong.
It's taken some getting used to, having to share him with her.
“Wanna call your boss back in? Either that or provide a cot?” I talk to the window where I’ve no doubt others are staring at me right now, watching me, measuring my worth.
I could save them the trouble. I’m not worth much. I know the truth, I’m a realist, not an optimist like Donny.
My currency here is information. I’ll give them anything and everything they could possibly want if it means walking out of here free.
I stand and crack my back, bending one way then the other. Stretching feels amazing after sitting for so long.
I joined a yoga class in prison a few years ago. The instructor once owned a studio in the city, with rich clients who also requested personal hands-on sessions. Nothing wrong with that until a spouse found out and called the cops. Came out she’d also been skimming, stealing money in the process.
Ballsy, blond and one hell of a yoga instructor.
She got out three months ago and got a hold of me. We had quite the...enlightening conversation. I don’t think I told Officer Burnard about that. My bad.
The door finally nudges open. A black shoe appears at the bottom, holding it in place and…then nothing.
Just the open door and shoe.
Is it Spikes? Someone else?
I want to look, walk around the table, pull the door and see who’s standing there.
Instead, I return to my place at the table, pull the chair in and wait for whomever is standing there to deign me with their presence.
If it weren’t for the obvious male shoe, I’d almost hope to have a chat with Spikes partner. She looks feisty. Interesting. Someone who might tell me more than Spikes.
A cop I haven’t seen yet steps into the room, lays down a pad of paper and pen, refusing to look at me.
“What’s this for?” I say to his retreating back.
His response is a closed door.
“I’m willing to be helpful,” I say to the mirror. “You need to give me more than this,” I hold up the supplies laid out in front of me. “What do you want me to do? Draw? Write something down? Confess something that isn’t true? Work with me, Spikes.”
I have to assume he’s behind the mirror, studying me.
That or he’s with Donny.
My mind whirls with so many thoughts, so many questions, that it's physically painful. This is going to be a long night, I know it, but I wish there was something I could do to speed up the process.
The door opens again and I jerk. Spikes finally appears. He’s left me in here for over an hour.
“Oh good, they brought it,” he says as he takes his seat and plops down a file folder.
“Is it for me to doodle? Keep me awake?” I smother a pretend yawn. I’m not tired. Not yet.
He opens the file and pulls out a print out of Bervie Springs. There are five red circles he’s drawn with a marker on the paper.
Those must be where the bodies were buried. Found. Are.
“We have records dating back years of projects Soil and Springs has worked on but I’m wondering if you could help us pinpoint locations that were important to Alexius and Donald.”
He doesn’t look at me, keeping his gaze down on the print out.
I lean forward and angle it more toward me.
“Important, how?”
Spikes raises his gaze then.
“Any spots they check over and over, or spent longer than anticipated, had you work at…anything that seemed overtly suspicious to you.”
I lean back in my chair. “Everything Alexius does is suspicious. And no, nothing jumps out at me. Every project we’ve had since I joined has been within the normal range of things. Not everything runs as smooth as you’d expect and quite often, they miss their deadlines, but when that happens, the client is always compensated.”
Spikes straightens.
“Compensated, how?”
Why is this so important? “Alexius always gives them a discount, a deep one, actually and then she adds on extra shrubs and fill.”
He scrawls some things down on his pad. “How deep?”
“The discount? More than half off sometimes. Depends on how badly things have been screwed or how late they are.”
Spikes cocks his head a little to the left. Someone is speaking into his ear and if he thinks he’s fooling me, he’s crazy.
“They’ve got ads all over the place about being the best in the business and always meeting deadlines.”
I want to laugh. I know this man isn’t naïve.
“Anything to beat out the competition,” I say. Donny stresses this a lot. Give the customers what they want, over promise, do anything to keep the sale.
“He’s in charge of the marketing. Not sure if you’ve noticed but every commercial for his used car sales is followed by an ad for Soil and Springs. He evens gets their logo, a sign, their flowers into his ads and vice versa. Every Soil and Springs vehicle advertises his car lot.”
“Must make for difficult accounting.”
“More like inventive.”
His brows perk up to his hairline and I catch a slight movement with his fingers.
“I’m sure you’ve already got your team looking into his accounting,” I look past his shoulder into the mirror. “You won’t find much. He prides himself on being above board.”
“You don’t believe that,” Spikes says. He shakes his head like a father about to have a serious talk with their child. “Nothing Donald Dixon does is above board.”
“You’re wrong.” My chin juts out and a fire blazes inside me. “People change. The man you think you know, he’s dead. Donny said I brought something new to his life, had him rethink everything and made him want to live differently.”
Spikes scratches his forehead and I can see him trying to find words to prove me wrong.
But he can’t.
Donny isn't the same man he used to be, the man I was first introduced to.
We both changed. We both sparked an implosion into the lives we used to live and created something new.
Spikes is rubbing his face with the palm of his hands and I can see how tired he is. Lines form beneath his eyes as we sit, staring at one another. He massages his temple, the pad of his finger turning white from pressure.
“You need to drink more water,” I tell him. “It’s the only thing that will help at the first sign of a headache.”
“Water won’t help this one.” His voice is lowered, a little gruffer than I expect to hear from him. “I came here for peace and quiet. I dealt with enough murders in the city. I came back home to focus on my family, to retire, to grow old.” He mumbles, loud enough for me to hear, but not for those listening in from the mirror to catch.