Be Careful of What You Wish 4

Across town from Possum Woods in another forest preserve draped in fog—blue emergency lights flickered, red bar lights swirled, yellow lights pulsed in counterpoint to strobbing grill lights. Lead by the coroner’s van, engines idled mournfully. Solemn voices talked scenarios. A half-mile deep into Schiller Forest Preserve Lindsey-Smith’s stomach tightened around an undigested sushi dinner as she watched the distant emergency lights smear a rainbow across the night’s white belly. It sucked. “I shouldn’t be here.” She mumbled to herself as she looked down at her feet and didn’t see them. It unsettled her. The ground beneath her barely felt solid. Shivers ran from her hair to her toenails not because of the seasonal chill. “God, I hate the woods.” She scratched at imaginary bugs. Crawly things lived in the forest. She needed to be someplace else, preferably a world away from the skeletal remains that lay by degrees nearby. In the clearing where she stood, not much of it visible in the gloom, the slender woman sensed tall trees, at least five stories high. She sensed a presence that trees should not have. She had one word for it, doom. Her erect posture collapsed when her root beer eyes fell on a group of special task force officers; their bodies struck rigid silhouettes against a cotton candy backdrop. “That aint right.” She uttered under her breath, suddenly desperate to get the hell up out of there. Instead, giving into morbid curiosity, she listened. “She’s probably seven.” A disembodied woman’s voice floated across to Lindsey-Smith from beyond the cluster of police officers. She detected a Mexican-American accent. “The 7s Killer?” Lindsey-Smith blurted out, her smoky voice cracking like a pubescent boy’s. She cleared her throat, wishing she could stuff the words back in her big fat mouth. Ten seconds later, a flashlight beam danced in her face. She realized someone had stepped out of the soup. The beam lowered to reveal a vertically challenged woman running a hand through a thicket of red hair. “Lose the mask, Lone Ranger! This is a crime scene not a Halloween party.” The sobering voice commanded and Lindsey-Smith obeyed stuffing her rhinestone mask into a black leather coat pocket. The shocking pink .9mm strapped to her hip was real. Only she knew that. Even so she felt queasy when the woman’s stormy green eyes lingered on it a second too long. “A pink gun.” The voice mocked. “Even play guns shouldn’t be pink. Who are you, anyway? Why are you here?” She smiled benevolently. Lindsey-Smith didn’t fall for it. “Excuse me?” Lindsey-Smith asked stupidly. Her lanky body bent into a question mark. Relief arrived a long second later in the form of Lieutenant Kyniska Lake who stuck her bronze sinewy body between the two women and made the introductions. “Lindsey-Smith Chief Boggs, head of the Special Task Force Department. Chief, we were on our way to the Rainbow Halloween Charity Ball when I got the call.” “So you bring her with you. Humph!” Boggs turned to Lindsey-Smith, “Ms Smith, where’d you get the name 7s Killer?” “I…Guess I made it up. It’s what I do. I’m a writer.” Lindsey-Smith answered, confusion twisting up her face. “Make sure I don’t hear it again. In fact, I’d better not hear a word of what’s happened here. Do you pick up what I’m puttin down?” Lindsey-Smith nodded her head. She’s pushier than Lake said. Eyes are stormier, too. “She understands, Chief.” Lake interjected. “We had that discussion.” Chief Boggs stepped back as if seeing Lake for the first time. “Let me guess. You’re some kind of cat.” Lake smiled tightly, “Panther.” She adjusted the waistband on her black tights. “I lost the whiskers…,” she gestured towards the forest, “…out there somewhere.” “Perrr-fect! Bring me the bitch that should be missing that baby, Lieu.” Boggs drew a hand through her crimson wicket. “I made you lead investigator because I expect you to make things happen. Who is she?” She flashed a smile at Lindsey-Smith. Lindsey-Smith blinked away the smile and found a brain cell to grapple with Boggs. Who was she talking about, the dead girl or her? What the hell was Boggs smiling about? Maybe that was a grimace. That’s it. Of course that’s it. Murdered children don’t bring smiles to cops’ faces. Lake glared at her date then turned to the remains. “I don’t believe that girl left the world unnoticed, Chief.” Lake snapped. “Take all the resources you need.” Boggs said, her eyes surveying Lindsey-Smith who in turn, to avoid trouble, cast her eyes on Lake. The whole thing felt strange to Lindsey-Smith, because Lake had turned off her sensuous let’s play persona and replaced it with edgy and dangerous the instant the call came in about a child’s body in the woods. Lake’s sudden flip-flop had instantly turned on whatever was lesbian in Lindsey-Smith; normally, it would’ve signaled schizophrenic behavior and sent her running. Lake was tall—five eleven—and buff. Even partially obscured by fog she stood out among the crime scene technicians and police personnel her bearing so feline-like. She had slanted almost black almond shaped-eyes that smoked. Her shoulder length hair swept severely back away from a high forehead that accented chiseled cheekbones giving her a look of intelligent rage that sent out the message don’t mess with me. She wasn’t pretty, but oh that ass. Seldom, had Lindsey-Smith ever seen reason to break her own rules, especially that one about never messing with dangerous women. Over Lake’s shoulder Lindsey-Smith noticed flashlights bouncing beams off the ground where suddenly a gust of wind snatched away the gloom exposing matted long dark hair lying like a wig near a decayed-once-upon-a-time white dress—ghastly against the Halloween night’s melodramatic fog. Unable to pull her eyes away she squeezed them shut. A throaty voice, not hers, whispered, the elements and critters had their way with Serena, too. A mutt gnawed on Serena’s tibia, too. Took it home to its master who didn’t have a clue it was human. She pried her eyes open. A dog barked in the woods.