Serpents Rising. David A. Poulsen
“Because a scared dad hired me to protect his kid. And that’s what I’m going to do, but I could use your help.”
“Trouble is, I don’t know where he is. Jay isn’t what you’d call reliable. He’ll tell you he’s going to be somewhere at a certain time and show up a few hours later, or the next day, or not at all.”
There was a knock at the door. Sitting there grouped around the candles, talking in low voices, we hadn’t heard anyone approach. I have to admit I jumped. I think Zoe did too. Cobb stood up, turned to face the door.
“Yeah?” Zoe called
A gravel voice answered. “I got an extra heater and a cord. I’ll leave ’em right here.”
“Thanks, Jackie,” Zoe called again, then looked at us. “Jackie Morris. My neighbor. Good guy. One person I can trust.”
“We met him.” Cobb sat back down.
We waited and no one spoke until we heard shuffling footsteps moving away from Zoe’s door.
Cobb said, “You were saying that Jay isn’t reliable.”
Zoe looked at each of us in turn. It looked like she was deciding whether she ought to be critical of Jay in front of strangers.
“Sometimes he’s great. When he’s sort of in control of his life, everybody loves him — he’s funny, smart, creative, considerate … just a good guy. I know that sounds, I don’t know —”
“We’ve heard that same description of him from other people,” I said.
She nodded. “Anyway, Jay is pretty heavily addicted. He’s tried, really tried, but he can’t seem to stay clean, at least not for any length of time.”
I sipped my water. “Back to my earlier question: is Jay the reason you’re here tonight instead of somewhere warm? You’re expecting him?”
She hesitated then smiled a little. Shy. “Not expecting, exactly. More hoping.”
“If he doesn’t show up here, is there anywhere you could suggest we look?”
“If I knew, I’d look there myself.”
Cobb said. “So you haven’t seen him in a while.”
“A week, maybe more. Like I said, he tends to disappear from the radar sometimes. Real hard to find then. I’ve given up looking. I just live my life and if he comes around, great, if not …” She shrugged.
Cobb stood up. “Thanks Zoe. We do appreciate the help. If you hear from him or of him, I’d appreciate a call.” He handed her one of his cards.
“Likewise.”
“Fair enough. You have a cell phone?”
“Uh-uh. The thing with having a cell phone is they expect you to pay the bill now and again.”
Cobb nodded. “If we find out anything, I’ll get word to you.” He turned toward the door.
I finished my water, set the glass down, and stood up. “Zoe, just wondering, I know it’s none of my business, but have you answered that note from your parents?”
She looked over at the note, then back at me.
“Sorry, we weren’t really snooping, just trying to find out if Jay —”
She waved an arm. “It’s okay, and no I haven’t. My bad, huh?”
“I don’t know anything about your relationship with your parents. It just sounded like they’re worried, that’s all.”
“That’s another story for another time. I’ll think about letting them know I’m okay.”
I nodded, turned, and followed Cobb to the door. As we stepped into the hall, the space heater and neatly coiled extension cord were sitting next to the doorway. The heater didn’t look like it would generate a lot of warmth but maybe it would help if it was right next to you. Maybe.
Cobb didn’t say anything until we were back on the street. The temperature had dropped a few more degrees but the wind had let up. A few flakes of snow drifted down. It wasn’t a bad night, especially if you were going home to a house with a furnace and a warm bed.
“The offer still stand? We have another go at this tomorrow?”
I nodded. “The offer still stands.”
It was a quiet ride back to my place. I thought we might stop for a drink, do a little recap of the day and what we’d learned. But I was relieved when Cobb seemed intent on taking a straight line back to Drury Avenue. I was too tired to make much sense and mostly wanted a hot shower to get the smell and feel of the places we’d been off me. And sleep, I wanted that most of all.
As we turned the corner that led to my apartment building, Cobb took a breath, exhaled, and said, “Interesting day.”
“It was,” I agreed.
“Listen … thanks.”
“I hope we get a little closer to the kid tomorrow.”
Cobb pulled to a stop in front of my building. Reached across, shook my hand. “See you in the morning. How about eight?”
“I’ll try to be a little more ready for action then I was this morning.”
Cobb smiled and I stepped out into the street. The Jeep had turned the corner and disappeared before I had the front door of my building open.
Five
The shower felt as good as I thought it would and I stayed in it until the hot water heater’s supply was exhausted and the stream turned cool, then cold. My body was exhausted but my mind was on full alert. Thinking the whole time I was in the shower.
But I hadn’t been thinking about Jay Blevins and the race to find him. Instead my mind was occupied with the conversation Cobb and I had had over lunch, when he’d suggested that maybe there was something in Donna’s past that had led to the setting of the fire that killed her. That maybe she had been the target.
I stepped out of the shower, towelled off, and climbed into sweats and a University of Calgary Dinosaurs hoodie. I poured myself a stout portion of Crown Royal mixed with a lesser portion of Diet Coke, put Del Barber’s Love Songs for the Last 20 and The Tragically Hip’s We Are the Same on the CD player and sat down to think about what Cobb had said.
What about before she knew you? Something or someone in her past?
I had thought and rethought about that possibility in the weeks and months after the fire, trying to make sense of the senseless. And I’d rejected the notion every time.
It simply made sense to me that someone in my line of work — work that involved offending, sometimes attacking people in print that thousands of other people might read — was the target.
Me. It had to be me.
The note had confirmed that, hadn’t it? Why would someone send that note to me if Donna had been the target? The arsonist would have already accomplished his goal — Donna was dead. That certainty coupled with my absolute belief that no one could possibly have hated Donna enough to want her dead had been the basis for my rejecting the idea that she was the killer’s target that night. And I was just as sure now, all these years after her death.
Or was I?
Weirder shit than that — a lot weirder — has happened.
I sipped on my drink, stared at a couple of flecks on the ceiling. Something or someone in her past.
A nut job from when she was a teenager, some guy who felt slighted because she wouldn’t go to the prom with him or got the scholarship he thought he should have got or …
But would a nut job wait years to exact his revenge? That’s why the whole thing seemed