Molly Brown (6 page)

*  *  *

Connell stopped at a convenience store on his way back to the alley. He picked up a selection of batteries, a pack of marker pens, some of Joe’s favorite candy and a bottle of soda. He checked his watch when he parked his car in the alley outside the library. It was six-thirty and he still wasn’t on the home stretch yet.

He was losing his touch. He d
idn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it earlier, although maybe being zapped by the equivalent of a lightning strike had helped channel his thoughts. A big cat, a little girl and one funky looking cat door. He found it right where he’d seen it, and ignored it, earlier.

Squatting down
, he opened the convenience store bag and retrieved half the candy for Joe. He took the paperback book he’d found under Molly’s pillow from his jacket pocket and hesitated for just a moment before slipping it into the bag. It was evidence, he supposed, but of what he wasn’t sure, and he figured it was probably of more value to her than him. As an afterthought he tore out some loose sheets from the back of his notebook and stuffed them in the bag. No point in having colored pens without any paper to draw on.

He rolled down the top of the bag and pushed it through the cat flap as far as he could reach, before pulling his arm back fast. He didn’t much like the idea of coming into contact with those giant feline claws. He’d seen the damage they’d done to the library counter. Cats were okay, but he was more of a dog kinda guy, if truth be told. Dogs could do cool things
. Cats just did as they pleased and that cat had given him a warning look.

He glanced around. When he was sure the alley was empty and there was no one nearby to raise an eyebrow at him for talking to a cat door, he flopped down wearily onto the dusty ground and called softly through the opening.

“Hi, Molly, just Tommy here. We met this afternoon.” Well, he was pretty sure they’d met. If you could call the fleeting image in the rearview mirror a meeting and if he hadn’t just been suffering the after-effects of a concussion and imagined it all.

No, he’d had worse blows to the head. He definitely hadn’t imagined it.

“Don’t know about you, kiddo, but I’ve had a kinda rough day.” He stifled a yawn. It was a mistake to sit down, he realized. Standing was better for keeping awake, for keeping on his toes. “I’m ready to hit the sack, Molly, and I expect you are too. So, kiddo, here’s the deal. First off, you’re not in trouble and I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to bail on you or forget about you either. I just want to help you out and make sure you don’t get hurt.”

He paused, listened, but didn’t expect a reply
, though he was sure he heard the whisper of a held breath on the other side of the flap. Maybe he was imagining that, just hearing what he wanted to hear. He pulled up one knee and rested his arm loosely against it. Leaning his head back against the brick wall, he felt the soothing coolness through his scalp and closed his eyes. He was in a hurry but there was no way he wanted the child to know that. He imagined that too many people already had too little time for her, and it was about time all that changed.

He rubbed at tired eyes. It was another mistake
, he realized belatedly, to close them when he wasn’t able to follow through naturally and sleep, so he dragged them open and turned back to the flap.

“Kiddo, I’m
going to make sure whatever it is that has you curled up on a library shelf, instead of curled up in bed at home, is fixed for you. Then, when I come back, we can maybe say hi properly and pass the time of day.” He paused again, wondering if he was wasting his time, sure in his gut that he wasn’t. “Maybe you could help me out, then, with some things that have got me pretty confused.” He resisted the urge to check his watch. “ ‘Cause your teacher, Miss Rogers, thinks you’re cool at that kinda stuff.”

More silence.

“So, Molly Brown,” he said finally, “you sit tight and enjoy your book and I’ll see you in the morning.”

He got to his feet
, brushed the dirt from the seat of his pants and wondered if he was doing the right thing. He thought about forcing the door and going in to make sure. She was just a kid, after all. But despite what everyone else seemed to think, he personally thought that little Molly Brown was smarter than most. She’d a good reason for making herself scarce and she’d found herself a safe place to lay low. Until he knew why she’d done a disappearing act, he figured she was safer left where she was. No one but a midget could get through the flap and no one but an idiot would try to get past that monster cat.

He flexed his battered muscles painfully and wondered whether being a good guy was all it was cracked up to be. It seemed like the bad guys were currently way ahead and he needed to do something to put that right. The sooner he signed off on Gibbons and Scott, the sooner he could help out Molly Brown and her wayward sister. As soon as that was done he had to stop taking calls from Gerry Gesting. There was only so much a body could take before it started to look personal
, and from where Connell stood, things seemed to be looking pretty much that way already.

Why were Gibbons and Scott so eager for him to back off and how come they knew so much about him? It seemed people were more interested in
him now he was a regular Joe than when he was actually carrying a badge. He wondered about Frankie’s involvement and whether that was just another weird coincidence or merely an indication of how everyone was connected to everyone else in a roundabout way. He wasn’t convinced on the coincidence theory.

He rubbed at his shoulder and was reminded again of his encounter at Molly’s apartment. Something
else that needed looking into. He couldn’t have some freaky guy running around randomly zapping people, only he didn’t believe it was random. The guy had been looking for something, had come to retrieve something specific, and Connell had got in his way. It could have been worse, he supposed. The guy could have been carrying a gun or a knife. He hadn’t, Connell realized, because his intention hadn’t been to kill or maim. He hadn’t expected Connell to be there, but the look on his face when he’d been confronted had simply been one of bemusement. Connell wasn’t sure what to think about that. Somehow he found it more unnerving than Gibbons’ sawed-off. But that didn’t answer the question of what exactly had been hidden beneath the boards in little Molly Brown’s apartment and why the guy thought it important enough to steal.  Perhaps, when he and Molly finally got to say hi, she could help him out with that.

He gave a final sweeping glance down the alley before returning to his car. The alley was long enough so the noise from the main street at each end didn’t filter through to the middle where he stood. The resulting heavy silence gave it an eerie atmosphere and Connell got the same feeling he’
d experienced in Molly’s room, that sense of something bad breathing down his neck. He was suffering from an overactive imagination, giving himself the creeps again, a sure sign he was tired and sore and he needed to go home. He missed the peace of the farm. He missed Lizzie and Joe.

He also missed the shadowy figure concealed in a doorway a
little way behind him, perhaps because the figure was more interested in watching than in being seen and had gained more than a little experience in doing just that, or perhaps because Connell’s head was so full of shit he couldn’t think straight, let alone see straight.

Connell unlocked his car and slid awkwardly in behind the wheel, unaware that his every move, his every wince
, was being duly noted and stored for future use.  He checked his watch. Time to get moving.

He did just that
and headed for an even less desirable spot.

*  *  *

The derelict warehouse where he’d tailed Gibbons and Scott the previous night looked less menacing in daylight. Connell was grateful for the long summer evening that meant, despite running so late, he was not at the mercy of anything inclined to go bump in the night. Not that he was scared of the dark, just naturally cautious of the sort of people and things that lurked within it.

He sat in his car
parked alongside the corrugated structure and studied the way the building leaned impossibly to one side. A reversing forklift, or even the leaning of a well-made man such as Gibbons, would be all it would take to nudge the building to the ground, and Connell hesitated before leaving the relative safety of the vehicle and walking into its cavernous space.

The evening sun struggled through the grimy skylights and fractured through the gaps in the cracked, corrugated walls. The effect inside was one o
f intermittent light and dark, the sunlight catching dancing dust motes and causing Connell to shield his eyes, while the darkness enveloped the far corners of the building and shrouded the isolated and abandoned machinery that had outlived its usefulness, but was too heavy to steal.

There had been three cars parked up when he’d previou
sly observed from the shadows, one belonging as he now knew to Frankie, but driven by Gibbons and Scott. The other could well have been Frankie’s own now that his involvement had been declared. But the third was as yet unknown. Connell flexed his stiffening muscles and scanned the abandoned compound, got a fix on where he thought the cars had been and checked the dirt with a scuff of his shoe for anything that may have been inadvertently discarded.

Finding nothing, he wandered slowly into the belly of the building and listened distractedly to the steel frame as it creaked and cooled under the waning heat of the sun. At the far end up a rickety set of wooden stairs sat the remains of an office. The glass windows
, that looked out onto the warehouse floor had long since been smashed, probably by kids, and the whole platform sat precariously on wooden legs that sagged with age and rot.

Connell tested t
he first step gingerly and proceeded carefully, with one hand on the rail. The office was, as he expected, derelict, covered in graffiti and reeking of urine and beer. Okay, so this was where the local kids hung out. Maybe if he could catch himself a local kid, he might find out was going on down here after dark.

He stood on the top stair and stared down at the empty hull beneath him. His vantage point gave h
im a unique view and he was able to make out what he hadn’t been able to see when his feet had been on terra firma - tracks in the dirt of the factory floor, lots of tracks from something big and heavy.

If he’d still had a badge, Connell might have called
someone smarter than him who could have done something astounding with a camera and come up with the brand of tire, model of truck and quite likely the name of the guy who’d driven it. But in the absence of such technology, Connell pulled out his cell phone and took some photos - that were bad but good enough - and decided he knew as much as he needed to know. Big truck equated with big cargo; he just needed to know what it was doing changing hands under cover of darkness in a building that was ready to fall down.

Interesting
, thought Connell, but not interesting enough to delay his journey home any longer.

Chapter Six

It was dark when Connell finally pulled into the farmyard, and he was thankful for small mercies. Okay, so he was late and he would pay for that, but the main house lights were off, so maybe he’d get away with the fact that he’d had a difference of opinion with the tail end of a shotgun. He hauled himself wearily from the car and stood a moment, leaning against the cooling metal, relishing the night air and the sweet scent of pines. Taking as deep a breath as his ribs would allow, he turned and found he was looking down the barrel of yet another shotgun.

“Parker, for Christ’s sake, o
ne of these days you’re going to take my head off with that thing.”

The old man peered over the top of his glasses through the gloom and lowered his weapon fractionally. “Is that you, Sonny?”

“Of course it’s me. Who else would it be in my car in my yard? And the name’s Tommy, not Sonny.” Connell reached back in through the open car window and retrieved Joe’s candy. “What you doin’ anyway, creeping about in the dark?”

“Keepin’ watch on them young-uns, whic
h is what you should be doin’, Sonny.”

Oh yeah, he was a funny one, was old Parker. “Lizzie and Joe don’t need you patrolling the grounds with a shotgun, Parker.
There’s nothing out here but horses and trees.” He cast a glance out into the darkness. Lots of trees. The farm’s pastures were surrounded by thickly wooded hills. It was what Lizzie loved about the place. It reminded her of home back in England, in the little village with no bus. He returned his gaze to the old man. “You keep that up and you’ll likely shoot yourself.”

“Huh! Y
ou choose to leave your family for days on end, you gotta expect another man to muscle in.”

Connell smiled. “Are you figuring on doing just tha
t, Parker?” The old man cackled and Connell heard the dry rattle in his chest. “Because I need to know if I’ve got competition.”

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. I got my attractions.”

“Yeah?” Connell stepped away, leaned back on the paddock rail and gave Lizzie’s new car the once over. He had to admit it had a certain appeal. Reckoned it might be cool to take it through its paces and see how its racing tires handled the farm tracks. He doubted, though, if she’d let him loose behind the wheel of her pride and joy.

Parker joined him, taking in the night air, his weapon safely stowed. “I wasn’t always this old
, you know,” he growled. “I was known as a bit of a lady’s man in my day.”

“Oh yea
h, which day was that, Parker? The day they invented the wheel?”

“Hey, I could teach you a thing or two, Sonny.”

“Have you been making eyes at my girl, Parker?” asked Connell, amusement pushing aside his exhaustion. Parker was a stubborn old buzzard who generally made his life hell and grumbled endlessly about every little irritation he could think of. Usually it was about some mischief of Joe’s, and to be fair, Joe did get up to plenty. Connell knew, though, that Parker adored Lizzie and Joe, and he’d never have agreed to sell the farm if it hadn’t been for them. Although the old guy was crazy as a sack of raccoons, it gave Connell a good feeling inside knowing Parker was keeping an eye out when he couldn’t.

“Only got eyes for one
girl now,” said Parker sadly, “and she’s been gone for over twenty years.”

“
‘Bout time you joined her, then,” joked Connell wryly. “I know a great spot in the woods. Any more of your bitching and we could take a walk out there together ...”

Parker gave a dry laugh, which desce
nded into a painful cough. “Huh! We go out there together, Sonny, it won’t be you coming back, I can tell you that.”

“You think you’ve still got what it takes, Parker?” said Connell, his eyes now on the stars above his head, his attention already wandering away from the old man.

“You ever killed a man, Sonny?” asked Parker, and Connell’s attention was drawn reluctantly back.

Connell believed he’d been ultimately res
ponsible for a number of deaths and had carried that knowledge around with him for some time now. He’d also been in close proximity when a number of people had taken their last breath. But as for actually pulling the trigger and killing someone ... “No, I haven’t,” he replied slowly, not sure where the conversation was going, and certainly not liking the direction.

“Is that why you don’t like to carry your gun no more?” continued Parker “
‘Cause you want to make sure you keep it that way?”

“What do you know about that?”

“I know about a lot of things. That’s what comes of being old, you soak stuff up and piss it out when you’re done with it. I’ve been doing a lot of pissing lately. Some folk might call it incontinence, I call it letting go of all the stuff I don’t need on the other side.”

Connell shrugged wearily. W
ell, Parker was certainly in the mood to go on tonight, and he was too damn tired to listen to it.

“So, is that it?” prompted Parker. “Why you don’t like playing with guns no more?”

Connell didn’t answer immediately, couldn’t really explain why he felt the way he did. He knew it had a lot to do with his inability to take a shot when his son’s life had depended on it, but he wasn’t ready to discuss it with anyone, least of all crazy old Parker.

“I killed a guy once,” said the old man, filling the awkward silence with his creaking voice.

“You did?” Connell wasn’t interested in Parker’s war time reminiscence, not at this time of night, but was well used to the way the old man’s erratic thoughts caused his conversations to jump around from one loony idea to another. He glanced back at the house; saw a dim light burning in the bedroom window. He was tired, and he wanted Lizzie. Wanted to fold his arms around her, bathe in her sweet scent.

“Buried him in the woods,” added Parker.

“Oh yeah, what’d he do, die from boredom listening to you?” The guy was nuts, always coming out with strange stories and tall tales, which was fine during daylight hours, but not when Connell had other things in mind. He rubbed a hand across his eyes, in an effort to stay focused.

“He insulted my wife. I came home one night and found her crying, seen what he’d done to her. So’s I marched him out to the woods - and left him there. August, Ninete
en Fifty-Nine, it was. That’s why you shouldn’t be leaving your family alone. Some folk have bad manners.”

Connell shot him a glance. “Are you messing with me, Parker?”

“I left him for three days, tied to a tree and then I went back and put him out of his misery. A man behaves like an animal, treat him like an animal, that’s what I say.”

“You’re not joking
, are you?”

“I can show you the spot.” He smiled slyly at Connell, showing perfect w
hite dentures which seemed over-large for his mouth. Clacking them back into place with his tongue, he added. “Probably the same place where you were planning on leaving me.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Over fifty years after the event, if it had even happened at all
...

“What you
going to do about it? I figured, you’re not a cop anymore, so’s you can’t arrest me. I just figured you needed to know that I got it in me, that I’d do what was necessary to protect what was mine.”

Connell bristled suddenly
with hackles he thought had deserted him, “You saying I wouldn’t?”

“Did I say that? No
, I didn’t say that. Calm down, Sonny. You want to open your ears and listen instead of puffing yourself up like some junkyard dog.” He gave a hacking cough, spat noisily into the darkness and Connell took an avoiding step back. “I’m saying you definitely would, I see it in your eyes. And you don’t need to beat yourself up about whether you should or shouldn’t have taken a shot. Things have a way of working themselves out. When you do need to take that shot, believe me, you’ll take it.”

Connell looked at him, wondering what Parker could see that he couldn’t and why he was even bothered by the ranting of a crazy old man.

“Go to bed, Parker,” he said finally. He’d had enough, and yet he watched in uneasy silence as the old man shuffled off into the night.

*  *  *

He checked in on Joe as he made his way up the stairs, trying to be quiet and avoiding the creaking boards with the ease of a man who’d done this before. Joe’s room was a mess, as he knew it would be. The toys scattered across the carpet threatened to be his undoing as he stepped on a car and stifled a curse. Joe slept on, his tousled head pillowed on his arms. Connell leaned over, pressed a kiss gently on his cheek and heard the steady thump of a dog’s tail as it beat against the duvet. He reached out a hand and petted the dog.

“Shush
... Spidey, go back to sleep. Don’t you go waking Joey - not tonight,” The dog smiled its doggy smile and settled down. Yeah, thought Connell, never mind cats, dogs were definitely this man’s best friend. He backed out of the room and closed the door gently.

Standing under the shower, he braced his hands against the wall, letting the water beat down on his back. He washed away
the filth of the city and felt his mood lift as he watched the soapy water disappear down the drain. Okay, he said to himself as he stepped from the stall and wrapped a towel round his waist, for one night at least he was going to forget about all the weird shit he’d endured.

Lizzie was lying with her back to him as he closed the bedroom door. Either, she’d just stre
tched out that way in her sleep or he had some ground to make up. He’d said eight o’clock and it was after eleven. No sweat, he was an expert at making up ground. He slid between the sheets and reached across her, breathing in her scent and letting out a sigh of relief. He could put up with anything that life cared to throw at him as long as he could come back to this, to her.

“Honey
, I’m home ...” he whispered in his best Jack Nicholson voice, and he felt her twitch with badly contained laughter wrapped up in a thin veneer of indignation. He pressed his advantage and moved his hand. Her skin was soft and warm. “I was going to tell you all about my adventures in the big bad city ...” he ran his hand down the length of her thigh, “and how much I’d missed you ...” He dipped his head and found the soft skin at the base of her neck. “But if you’re too tired ...” She didn’t resist as he pulled her gently toward him. “If you’re still sleeping ...” he found her lips and loitered there awhile, “then I guess it’ll wait till morning.”

“Hmm,” she responded
as she turned in his arms and ran her hands across his chest. “You’ve been having adventures while I’ve been lying here waiting for you?” She moved closer and held him tightly, needing him as much as he needed her. He winced, and she drew back and peered at him through the darkness. “What happened?” she asked, her hand poised on the site of his taser altercation which by unhappy coincidence was also where he had previously taken a bullet.

He took her h
and and moved it onto his belly, which was also a little tender, though altogether more responsive and appreciative of a little light caressing. “Okay,” he began when her hand stayed motionless and he realized that maybe he had a little more ground to make up, “here’s the deal. You can do whatever you like to me tonight and tomorrow I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

“That’s big of you, such self-sacrifice.” She lowered her hand and squeezed gently. “You actually think that I’m going to be satisfied with that?”

Connell grinned in the dark. “Keep doing what you’re doing and I can guarantee that you’ll be satisfied.”

She released her hand and wriggled against him. “I meant with your explanation.”

He replaced her hand. “What can I say? I’m a pushover for torture. A couple of hours of that and there won’t be a thing left that you don’t know about me.”

“You think you can stand a couple of hours?”

He was winning and he did like to win. “No, but I sure could take it lying down.”

She kissed him slowly and then drew back. “Okay, but you may regret this in the morning. Remember
, I’m a nurse. There’s nothing you can hide from me.”

Cool, he thought. She could examine him anytime.

The sun was streaming in through the window when he woke. He groggily raised his head from the pillow and discovered that although Lizzie was nowhere to be seen, he wasn’t alone.

“Hi, Daddy,” said Joe. He sat on the edge of the bed eating toast and scattering crumbs. Spidey was doing what every good dog should do and vacuuming them up.

“Hi, kiddo,” yawned Connell and he leaned across and ruffled his son’s hair. “What time is it?”

Joe paused in the process of shoving in the next piece of toast and Spidey waited expectantly. “I dunno,” he shrugged in a perfect copy of his father. “I’m only six. I haven’t learned to tell time yet. It’s breakfast time, I guess.”

Connell smiled and reac
hed past him for his watch. Six-thirty. He’d planned to be up and away before Lizzie had a chance to hold him to his end of the bargain but it appeared he’d overslept.

“You’re in big trouble, Daddy,” said Joe as he clambored off the bed and headed for the door.