Zombies in the Delta (Peyton Brooks, FBI Book 1) Page 14

“I don’t know. You’re clearly angry about something. You want to clue me in.”

  He lifted his chin and gave her a withering stare, then he reached for two napkins and held out a plate to her. “Everything’s fine. Let’s eat before it gets cold.”

  She didn’t take the plate. “I have to walk Pickles.”

  “Done. And he’s been fed.” When she still didn’t take the plate, he set it on the counter and grabbed his own, going to the barstools and taking a seat. He started eating with violent intensity.

  Peyton watched him a moment, confused, then she settled Pickles on the ground and walked toward the bedroom, removing her suit jacket. For some reason, tears burned in her eyes, but she fought them as she began changing out of her work clothes. She hung them up in the closet and went to the dresser, reaching for a pair of shorts and a tank top.

  Suddenly he was there, turning her to face him. He pulled the shorts and tank top out of her hands and set them on the dresser, then he slid an arm around her waist, pulling her against him.

  She pressed her hands to his chest. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” he said, then he kissed her.

  “Marco,” she protested, trying to push him away, but he wouldn’t release her.

  “Shh,” he whispered, “everything’s okay. Please, sweetheart, just let it go.”

  She wanted an explanation, but her thoughts scattered when he kissed her again, pressing her back into the dresser.

  Many hours later, she woke and reached for him, but his side of the bed was empty. She pushed back the covers and grabbed the jersey she usually wore off the chair in the corner, pulling it over her head.

  She found him in the kitchen, doing dishes. Pushing back her curls, she blinked sleepily at him. He wore only a pair of athletic shorts, the scar in his lower thigh visible, a large rope of knotted tissue.

  “Why are you up?”

  “Do you want something to eat? You didn’t eat earlier.” He went to the refrigerator and pulled it open, taking out a tinfoil covered plate. He removed the tinfoil and placed the plate in the microwave.

  “Marco, why are you up?” She looked at the clock on the stove. “It’s 2:00AM.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.” The microwave dinged and he pulled the dish out, grabbing a fork. “Sit down and eat.”

  Peyton went to the barstools and climbed up. He placed the plate in front of her. “Do you want some water?”

  “Sure,” she said, taking a bite. She wasn’t really hungry. He was acting so strange, she felt a little afraid. “Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

  He filled a glass with water and handed it to her. “Nothing.”

  “Really? Because earlier you were obviously pissed about something, then there was that whole thing in the bedroom.” She waved over her shoulder. “And now you’re doing dishes?”

  He leaned on the counter, folding his arms on the surface. “I was upset about the case I’m working and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”

  She took another bite. “The suicide?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s going on with it?”

  “Stan found the video. She didn’t even know her boyfriend was filming it, but he did. He gave the camera a thumb’s up.”

  Peyton grimaced. “Lord, what a prick.”

  “Yeah, but does that make him a murderer?”

  Peyton sighed. “I don’t know. He knew he would hurt her by showing it, but did he know she would kill herself? That’s where you’re going to have problems. It’s like this whole bullying thing that’s happening. Are the bullies responsible if the person they bully commits suicide?”

  “Maybe they should be.”

  Peyton shrugged. “Yeah, but where do you draw that line? If I confront someone because I’m angry and they off themselves, am I a murderer?”

  Marco rubbed his forehead. “That’s what I just don’t know.”

  Peyton chewed her inner lip. “So is that really what had you worked up before?”

  “Yeah.”

  The answer was so clipped, so short, she just didn’t believe him.

  “What was the thing with the Jack Daniels?”

  He looked up at her. Their eyes met and held, then he looked away. “Nothing. I just thought you’d want to know why it’s in the trash. You haven’t been drinking lately, so I thought we might as well get rid of it.”

  He was lying. She knew it, but she didn’t know what to do. Abe thought she should confront him, but if he was taking the situation into his own hands, did they even need to have this conversation? And it was a conversation she knew would turn into a fight. Shouldn’t she just let him take control himself and give him the benefit of the doubt? Wasn’t that what relationships were about? Trusting the other person to do right.

  She went back to eating.

  He put a few dishes away, then wandered around the counter toward her. “What’s say we go back to bed? We both need to get up early tomorrow.”

  She leaned over the counter and settled her plate next to the sink. “Sounds good.”

  He draped an arm over her shoulder as she moved up beside him and kissed her on the top of her head. “You know I’m crazy in love with you, right?”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist. “Well, that’s good, ‘cause I’m crazy in love with you.”

  He smiled and kissed her again.

  CHAPTER 9

  “We had an agreement that you would either go to the group meeting or go to church. You chose church. How’d it go?”

  Marco felt as if he were crawling out of his skin. He shifted uncomfortably on the chair and focused his attention on Dr. Ferguson’s windows, but all he could see was the building across the street. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want any part of this therapy any longer. It was as useless as his appointments with the orthopedic surgeon.

  “I went to church.”

  “How was it?”

  “Good.”

  “Good? What was good about it?”

  “Getting back into the whole routine of it. I realized I’d been missing it.”

  Dr. Ferguson studied him, his index fingers pressed to his lower lip. Marco glanced at him and away.

  “I see a lot of people, Captain D’Angelo, do you know that? A lot of cops in particular.”

  Marco gave him a questioning look.

  “After you’ve done this job for many years, you start picking out patterns in people, general templates to use when evaluating what people tell you. As you can imagine, people come in here with all sorts of motives, all sorts of agendas. My job is to find out what those motives are in order to get to the heart of the problem.”

  “Thanks for telling me that. I was a little unclear what the purpose of your job was, but that makes it transparent.”

  Dr. Ferguson gave a slight smile. “Personalities are so varied that the art comes in trying to figure out just who someone is. We’ve all met the charismatic person who is a font of information, willing to share, willing to express him or herself. We instinctively like these people. We’re hard wired to fall for them, but they are liars. And they’re skilled at it too because after all, what is charisma but manipulation?”

  Marco frowned at him. This was all prattle and nonsense. He had a case to work.

  “Then there are the people like your fiancée, Captain D’Angelo. Charismatic, but also flawed. She genuinely places herself second to other people. Her selfless sacrifice draws people in and makes them want to orbit around her. She tries to protect others because she has an overdeveloped fear of losing people close to her.”

  Marco shifted again. He didn’t want to talk about Peyton. The doctor’s words were playing right into his insecurities about her, about why she stayed with him.

  “And then there are people like you, Captain D’Angelo. You don’t give a damn what I think about you. You just don’t want me to interfere with your purpose. You find me an annoyance, a hindrance. You want me gone out of your life. You guard yourself
so tightly, you protect yourself so severely, you make it difficult for anyone to get inside. It makes you a terrible liar.”

  “What is the purpose of this?”

  “You didn’t find church good. You didn’t find it good to get back into routine. You hated it. You felt out of place. The anger you carry prevents you from getting the solace you used to receive when you were part of it.” He lowered his hands. “You are not the same man you were. You inflicted your will on people by being physically imposing, by your virility and masculinity, but you are not that man anymore. When people look at you now, they don’t feel that physical intimidation they once did. They see a wounded man who is struggling to find his place.”

  Marco blinked in shock. What the hell?

  “And some part of you has to be afraid that you’ll never figure out who you are again.”

  Marco gave a disbelieving laugh. “Is the department paying you for this?”

  Dr. Ferguson leaned forward. “You will only heal when you figure out who you are. You will only heal when you accept your limitations. This situation was bound to happen at some point in your life, Captain D’Angelo. As you age, you were bound to lose that physicality that you took for granted. At some point, you were going to have to confront your own self-image. The bullet just made it happen sooner.”

  Marco gave a sarcastic nod. “Great advice, Dr. Ferguson. If we’re through here, I’ve got a case to work.”

  “We’re not through. We’ve barely begun.”

  Marco slumped in the chair.

  “I wanted you to go to the support group because it’s filled with people rediscovering who they are due to loss. Do I think it’s the perfect solution? No, but it’s a good one. It’s a start.” He picked up a pen and held it between both of his hands. “Let me ask you. What is the most important thing in your life?”

  “You know that.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “Peyton.”

  “Right. If you don’t do something about the anger and despair you feel, you’re going to drive her away. You’re going to lose her and that will be a bigger loss than your unsustainable macho self-image was. You’ve got to go to that support group, Captain D’Angelo. You’ve got to go if not for yourself, then for her. Period.”

  * * *

  The witches’ house was a squat single story with wood siding. It sat back from the road, down a narrow drive with oleander bushes creating a tunnel to the front steps. They pulled the Suburban up next to Sharpe’s patrol car on a widened patch of levee.

  Sharpe climbed out of the patrol car and met them at the start of the long drive. Peyton could see past the tunnel of oleanders where two women stood next to an open fire ringed in by river rocks. A black kettle sat on a tripod over the fire and around the fire were lawn chairs.

  Sharpe gave Peyton a nod, then shook hands with Tank and Radar. Finally he tipped his cap to Bambi.

  “Hello, officer,” said Bambi in a sultry voice.

  “Ma’am.” He turned to Radar. “Look, Radar, these women don’t cotton to uniforms.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Every time I’ve dealt with them, they’ve been ball busters.”

  “How often do you have to deal with them?”

  “More often than you’d think. They’re always having some party out here where someone gets wasted, strips naked, and starts running along the road or bouncing through the trees.”

  “They look like hippies, not witches,” said Radar, studying them behind his mirrored sunglasses.

  “The Wiccan religion, although relatively recent in its current form, does have ties back to pre-Christian Ireland, Scotland and Wales,” said Tank. “Although most pagan religions were wiped out during medieval times, recent discoveries of Paleolithic cave drawings depicting a fertility goddess and a hunter god suggest Wiccan beliefs may date back more than 30,000 years. Certainly, the current incarnation of the religion is within the last century, the 1950’s I believe, but the Wiccan’s beliefs remain relatively benign. They are a duotheistic religion, believing in a goddess and a god, typically the Mother Goddess and a Horned God. Most Wiccans are in tune with the forces of the universe and often perform shamanistic rituals of healing. For the most part it’s a loving, life-affirming religion rooted in the belief that we should only take what we need and no more.”

  No one moved. They all stood and stared at Tank.

  “Just thought you might like to know.”

  Peyton let out a whistle. She was impressed. Talk about still waters running deep. This guy was a freakin’ well.

  Radar gave a slow nod, then faced his team, but his eyes bore into Peyton. “I run point.”

  “You run point.”

  “I’ll do the talking. You just keep your eyes peeled.”

  “Got it, chief.”

  He held up a finger, glaring at her, then he snapped it to his side and turned, striding up the drive. They followed behind him.

  “You are just full of piss and vinegar, aren’t you?” chuckled Sharpe next to her.

  She shrugged.

  Radar reached beneath his black suit jacket and pulled out his badge, holding it before him. “Ladies, I’m Special Agent Carlos Moreno with the FBI.”

  “Ladies? Did you hear that, Lucy?” said a large, round woman wearing a multicolored muumuu. She had her hands tucked up inside the sleeves, her brown hair cut short and feathered away from her face. She looked to be in her late forties, early fifties. Her feet were stuffed into leather sandals.

  The other woman, Lucy Moonstar Dawn, was tall and lean, her features angular, sharp cheekbones, sharp hooked nose, dirty blond hair flowing far down her back almost to her ass. She wore capris and a loose peach t-shirt with sneakers and ankle socks. Beads and bangles draped around her neck and off her wrists, and feathers hung from her ears.

  “I heard.” She crossed her arms, her bangles jingling.

  Bambi nudged Peyton with her shoulder. “Is that a cauldron?”

  Peyton studied the black pot and had to admit Bambi was probably right. It looked like something she’d seen in a Halloween store. On the porch behind the women, hanging from the rafters, were all sorts of interesting items – things that looked like bird wings, sparkly bits of soda cans cut into shapes and attached to fishing wire, old chandeliers hung with teacups and eating utensils. As the breeze blew beneath the overhang, the various gadgets tinkled and made whispering sounds.

  Peyton shivered and looked around. The yard was choked with weeds. A broken bicycle leaned against the house and a derelict 1950’s Chevy rested on its rims in a back corner of the yard.

  Radar took a few steps closer. “Ma’am, we just want to ask you some questions.”

  “Ma’am? Honestly, are you trying to insult me? Don’t come any closer, bub. I don’t care for your tone.”

  “My tone?” Radar held out his hands. “What tone?”

  “Ma’am, ladies. Shit. Don’t dismiss me before you’ve even met me, bucko. I don’t appreciate it and I don’t have to take it.”

  “I need to ask you some questions about three homicides that happened in this area. In fact, two of the bodies were found on the farm adjacent to your own.” He took another step closer.

  “I said stay where you are. You got a warrant or something?”

  “A warrant? For questions?”

  The heavier woman, who had to be Dora Deuces, moved over and lowered her bulk into one of the lawn chairs. It groaned under her weight. “If I don’t see a warrant, you aren’t asking any questions. I’m damn sick of men coming on my land and thinking they can boss me around.”

  Radar turned to Sharpe. “Is she shitting me?”

  “Nope.”

  Radar’s jaw hardened. “Fine. Then I’ll go get a warrant and we’ll tear this bastard apart.” His voice trailed off and his eyes came to rest on Peyton.

  She gave him an innocent look.

  “You think you can get these bitches to talk?”

  “Not if you call th
em bitches where they can hear you.”

  Radar drew a calming breath. “Try to get them talking.” He glanced back at the filthy yard. “If we have to tear this place apart, we’re all gonna need tetanus shots.”

  Peyton smiled in triumph.

  “Don’t be smug, Sparky!” snapped Radar, pointing a finger at her. “They’re probably not going to talk to you either.”

  Peyton gave him a fake chastised look. He rolled his eyes.

  “Come on, Emma,” she said, reaching for her badge. “Let’s use our much smaller brains and see if we can get any answers out of these women.” She gave Radar a wink. “Why don’t you wait for us by the cars?”

  Radar grumbled something, but she didn’t hear what it was. She waited until he and the other two men moved back down the road, then she smiled at the witches as she stage-whispered to Bambi. “Is that a bat hanging from the chandelier on the edge of the porch?”

  Bambi’s gaze snapped to it. “Oh man, I think so. How cool?”

  The women eyed the two of them, but when Bambi pointed to the porch, they shifted and looked to where she indicated. “Is that a real bat?”

  Turning back around the two women exchanged looks. “Yep, found him out under one of the orchard trees,” said Lucy.

  Bambi’s eyes grew enormous. “Do you mind if I take a look?”

  “Not at all,” said Lucy, following Bambi toward the porch.

  Peyton strolled to the other side of the fire and passed her badge to Dora who was still sitting in the lawn chair. “I’m Peyton Brooks and that’s my partner, Emma Redford.”

  Dora handed her back the badge. “And you think that because you have a uterus, I’m going to listen to you any more than the Men in Black knock-offs.”

  “As a matter of fact I do.”

  Dora tilted up her chin and stared down her nose at her. “Okay. Sit. You got five minutes.”

  Peyton grabbed a lawn chair and sank into it. Leaning forward, she peered into the cauldron. “That sure smells good.”

  “It’s stew. Cooks best in cast iron over an open flame.”

  Peyton smiled. On the porch she could hear Bambi exclaim, “Is that a crow’s foot?”