ONE BUS SERVICED STERLING Hill, rolling up and down the 101, grinding as far as the homely streets of King City. The highway miles paced the chrome trim, and the bullet-shaped windows mimicked the forward lean of the bus as it trundled passengers to routine destinations. Once a month, the tan coach, calligraphed in mint-green accents and shining under the papery California sun, made a round trip to Monterey Bay. (A lark if you could afford it.) An old 1950s stub-nosed beast, the sleek body of the Sterling Hill bus gave the impression of fast action, like James Dean in a quick game of Chicken. Sadly, the opposite was true. Anyone reliant on the bus line timetable soon learned: Sterling Transit was thematic. It was always late.
The planter wall beneath me was already warm, subjected to the sun's scrutiny for the hour before I arrived. It ran the length of the bus stop. A long rectangle faced by cracked cement, the planter, tall enough that my heels chipped it further where I perched, separated the US Post Office parking lot from the daily "bus squatters" who made waiting on public transportation their profession; squatters like me despite this not being my usual sidewalk to squat on. Behind me, dudleyas grew, overwhelming the town-instituted dirt patch to spread heavy on the flat-topped wall. Green succulent leaves, waxy and plump, looked like curved fingers tipped bright red. Bunched together in the same way roses kept their petals, dudleyas made for pretty ground cover but looking at them now, all I could think of was my fingers, ice cold, dipped in old blood.
The dumpster yawns wide open, the trash bags lump inside like cold sores.
I scrubbed at the grainy sleepers stuck in my eyes. It'd been a long couple of hours folded in half on a forgotten office chair. Across the street was the police station. A chunk of brown shaped into an atrocious version of modern-day adobe, its smooth clay walls and sculpted arches sat angled on the corner. A set of glass doors watched the blue cross signs of Chapel St and Butte, the words 'Sterling Hill Police' set prominently on its brow. Inside, men and women in lackluster uniforms puttered about, answering phone calls, writing tickets, and shaking down the occasional junky lost over the town line. The crime rate on paper in Sterling Hill was next to zero. But I'd learned nothing—or no one, if we're going the distance—that looked and acted good ever was.
The pale yellow sun warmed my bare arms. My jacket was off and padded beside me. Rarely did I sit in my shirt sleeves, but the absence of shade voided all other options. California weather was funny like that. Ablaze in one spot. Chilly three steps to the left. Ordinarily polite, except in August when all bets were off. The West Coast was miraculous and downright dirty in the same breath.
I pulled at my cigarette as it dwindled. I could taste the burnt leaf, sugar, and whatever else—tar?—rolled up inside the unassuming white paper. Once, in an article, Brooke Sheilds, bless her, said: "Smoking can kill you. And if you've been killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." I nearly put myself in Sterling General, busting a gut over that. I laughed it out behind the Dime Stop register, a wall of cigarette cartons displayed behind me. What horseshit. What a fucking riot! She was a gorgeous actress, but she made no sense unscripted. Or maybe she was plain brilliant. Either way, someone had copied and printed it unapologetically, and now, whenever I lit up, a tiny portion of my brain flickered back to those words.
Because Asa would argue she was right if I let him. Life wasn't linear for my little brother. He swore death wasn't the end but rather a red push-pin on a much larger map. Did I believe him?
I didn't want to. I hoped not. Where was the peace in that?
Salt-n-pepper ash rolled across my knee, hopping down to join the sand grains and brush that whisked toward the gutters. I rubbed my chin against my shirt collar, testing the weave. Above me, the bus stop sign flashed like fish scales, rocking to and fro when the wind kicked up. The constant breeze drew the smoke from my face, teasing the Marlboro's cherry tip. When had I started relying on cigarettes to mellow? To stop my heart racing and my throat constricting when my dark thoughts multiplied, outpacing my rational self? I couldn't remember, or maybe I didn't want to.
Officer Lopez had allowed me a smoke when we first got to the police station, pushing a melamine ashtray across the table as an invitation. My fingers betrayed me then, trembling as I lit one. I pressed the cigarette against my dry lip and let it sit there as I squeezed my hands together, trying to rid myself of the death chill I'd caught off the body.
"I was hoping we'd never have to do this again," Lopez said. His medium build and mild height dominated his folding chair only. We both looked like children who had recently migrated from the kids table. He scratched at a phantom freckle on the flesh-toned folder before him; the simple, gold wedding band on his finger drew light across its shiny curve. His tanned fingers were thick because he was, the ring embedded deep below the knuckle.
I nodded and exhaled shakily, knocking the loose cigarette tip into a collection of day-old ash.
"Coffee?"
"Water. Please."
Lopez stood, his gun belt a personal flotation device around his hips. He adjusted it on his way to a 5-gallon glass jug turned upside down on a worn-out water cooler.
He was nice enough for a middle-aged cop. I knew him a little too well. Not in that way. It was more the way he'd dug through my family's metaphorical and financial closets after Polly's death that made me feel intimately connected to him. A worse feeling than a one-night stand, I was a hundred percent certain.
Lopez handed me a paper cup. I tamped out the cigarette and sipped, tasting the coated paper first.
"Thanks."
The folding chair creaked as he sat. His practical beige uniform blended into the off-white walls like dull camouflage. Even the Armstrong tiles on the floor were speckled brown as his boots.
"I want to go over your statement one last time." The tape recorder between us clicked on. Lopez tilted the microphone toward me, no doubt recording a static splash with his touch.
"Glad to see you're following the rules," I held his gaze and slumped in my chair. My jacket scrunched up to catch me. I folded my arms across my chest. "Just in case you want to blame me for this, too."
I don't know why I said it, but Lopez ignored the bait, glossing over it like an overly long word no one could pronounce, and flipped open the folder. The short blurb that was my life beamed up at him in hand-typed print—some clerk in the department preferred the out-of-sync results from a typewriter ribbon spool over a modern Microline.
"Amy Katharine Shippy. Twenty-nine years old. Caucasian. Female. Status: single. Address: 181 Farrow Lane. Mother: deceased. Father: deceased. One brother, Asa Miles Shippy." He paused. "Is that correct?"
"Reads like a bestseller," I said. My knees, stuffed under the interview table, didn't help my hostility which rose like yeasty dough the longer I sat in the tiny room. Two a.m. was an unkind hour on any clock, but the overwhelming paranoia percolating in my gut was different. Witness statements at the station were usual under the circumstances. There were no accusations against me, but I felt pinned in place. Trapped. Found out—or about to be. My leg bounced as I shifted in my seat.
Lopez closed the file, "Geez, Shippy, relax. You aren't in any trouble."
I straightened to stop fidgeting and laid my hands flat on the tabletop. The scarred particle board was cool to the touch. "Sorry," I said. My neck muscles tightened.
"Don't be sorry. Take a deep breath. I need you to tell me what happened tonight."
Flexing my hands, I cleared my throat, trying to find space to speak. "It was 11:30, and I took the garbage to the dumpster after closing. That's when I found her...The dead woman..."
Blood pools. Splotchy skin. Purple and black. An arm (that I touched). The round relief of a breast (a woman?). Eyes open, facing me. Milky-white. Nose, broken, smattered by dried blood. And her mouth—
Remarkably, it was closed, held shut maybe, and between her black and blue lips, I saw a silvery glint.
"I think there was a coin in her mouth."
"That tracks," Lopez scratched at the invisible speck on the folder again, still unable to hook it with his half-moon fingernail. "Was anyone else present apart from you?"
"Dalen Ross and Ray, but they didn't see anything."
"Dalen Ross and who?"
"Ray?"
"Ray, Who? Surname?"
"I don't know it," I hesitated and then forced: "Gay Ray" out between clenched teeth.
Lopez brightened with recognition. "Yeah, I know him. Catch him sleeping in his car by the creek sometimes."
(I guessed that satisfied my curiosity. Everyone knew poor Ray the same.)
"He's got a damn nice Buick. Shame about the condition."
(Everyone knew two things about Ray.)
"Tough break with his mom dying."
(Three things.)
"Hold up," I leaned forward, "what did you mean, "that tracks?" What tracks? The coin?"
The folding chair shuddered again across the shiny vinyl floor. Lopez readjusted his belt and snagged a second folder from atop a chest-high steel filing cabinet.
This one was pale green.
He tossed the folder before me and popped a half-seat on the corner of the metal table, bracing one foot on the floor. He was closer to me than I liked. I smelled him—pungent and soapy with a dash of coffee grinds.
"Department is calling him the "Coin Killer." Media hasn't caught wind of a pattern yet, but with your discovery tonight, we now have three victims: two females and one male, varying ages, all white. The cause of death is strangulation and a broken neck. But it's the coin left inside their mouths that's the concern. The Chief will need to make a statement regarding a potential...."
"Serial killer," I said. The concept of murder wasn't new to me. Instead, it was a fragmented thought coaxed to the forefront of my mind more often than I'd admit. I knew something about people and patterns, especially destructive people and their habits. Part of me feared my DNA and the inevitable if I dropped my guard for a second. I was certain I couldn't kill anything except, maybe, myself. Those moods leaned hard on me too often inside our house at 181 Farrow Lane, dissipating like nausea when I stepped into the fresh air.
I opened the file. Black and white photos returned my stare, equally dull-eyed. They seemed fake, somehow, the dead people. Hemmed by white print margins and slightly unfocused, they were store mannequins, posed and displayed. Instead of new jeans and vests, they wore blood and bruises like band patches.
"... It's shaping up like it," Lopez said. "Twenty years ago, there was no such thing as a serial killer. Now every city has ten psychos to its name..."
A photo dropped from the stack in my hand. I dragged it closer. It was an item, not a person. A coin inflated ten times its size, set next to a ruler to keep reality in check. A Barber quarter. The year 1909 was barely visible in the developed grain of the photograph.
"...like the Hillside Strangler. You and your brother should be careful until we catch this two-bit sonofabitch. Lock your doors. Don't stay out late..."
My stomach curdled. Saliva puddled under my tongue, and I swallowed. Once. Twice. Against my thigh, heat burned a matching quarter-sized hole through the cotton lining of my jeans pocket into my flesh.
"Did the other victim also have a Barber—1908, maybe?"
"The Liberty Heads?" Lopez spun the splayed file to read a paragraph. "Yes. How did you know?"
I pushed the grim photos back in line and picked up the cigarette that listed aimlessly in the ashtray. "My dad was a coin collector; there's never just two of the same coin lying around, especially different years."
"Good thing he's dead, then, right? Or we'd have to bring him in for questioning," Lopez said dryly, tapping his fist against the tabletop. "That would be easy." Two more meaty thuds hit me deep in the molars. "Case closed."
I pushed my chair back to gain space. "Are we done?"
Lopez blinked, "I'm sorry, that was out of line."
"You're goddamn right. Are we done?"
He switched off the recorder, "I just need you to sign your statement," and nudged an official-looking paper into the open, "then I can get someone to drive you home."
The out-of-place rage flashed through me again, "I'm not getting into a car with any of you fascist pigs. Give me the pen." There was a ballpoint on the table. I snatched it up and scribbled my name on the slashed line. "I'm going home."
"How?"
His question stumped me. I paused. "The bus."
"Shippy, the bus doesn't run this late."
I knew that. I did. I had the routes memorized.
Lopez eased his weight off the table, "Is there someone you could call to come get you?"
A big, fat, venomous "NO," escaped me. The rational side of me fought for a recant, for me to accept the ride home, but blind hate burbled wildly in my chest like sudden heartburn, holding me hostage to the decision.
"Alright, get your stuff," Lopez said. "I can't let you wander in the dark, not with a killer on the loose. You can stay here until the bus runs. It stops across the street around seven."
"You can't keep me here. I'm not under arrest. I have the right to lea—"
"And I have the right to keep you from ending up on a slab in the morgue, now shut up and take the offer."
The smell of diesel proceeded the approaching bus. The engine's hum and the predominant squeak of brakes snapped me back into the morning sunshine. Gathering my jacket and the JanSport backpack slumped under my feet, I hopped off the wall, shoving the Barber inside its usual cloth housing. I didn't keep it in a wallet. Part of me wanted to lose it. But dammit, I never did.
I flicked the spent cigarette under the large rubber bus tires as the bus doors groaned open on overworked hinges. Two dirt-creased steps, and I entered the cruel netherworld of public transit. Lopez had taken care of the fare, handing me a dollar and a department doughnut.
"Don't leave town. We may need to talk again."
"Swell, I'll cancel my trip to the moon."
I slipped the crumpled money into the fare box, exchanged a short "hello" with Allan, my daily chauffeur (if Al was sick, then the more timely George took over, but I preferred Allan's personality to George's punctuality), and presented myself to the seat selections. You didn't choose a seat on a bus; the seats chose you. If you were lucky, you'd get a window you could see out of or an air vent that worked. Or, in my case, a seat across from Judith.
Thoughts of Lopez and the dumpster vanished when I saw her sitting in her usual place behind Allan's wide-angle perch, hands folded in her skirt, purse tucked tight to her hip on the avocado-colored cushions. A thin, red purse strap crossed her upper body, aligning her waist and left shoulder, shyly dividing her breasts on the way over. I was relieved to see her. Happy, even. We traveled the 5:30 bus route together, but Fate seemed kind today. It owed me after last night. I silently thanked whatever appointment or irregular mission had led her to ride the 7:00 a.m. with me today.
The bus doors hissed closed. A handful of people sat scattered. Some wore suits, but most were older women on their way to a day of shopping. An empty seat three down to the right beckoned me, and I started moving. Not much made me nervous anymore, but a cold excitement prickled my arm hair as I passed Judith, keeping my eyes on the aisle floor. Being near her paralyzed me—a lightning bolt to my stomach, then tingles and blank thoughts afterward. I wasn't keen on the feeling. The embarrassment would put me into an early grave. I was a hundred percent certain.
The bus rolled into the street as I plopped down, shoving my backpack beside me. It wasn't a red purse, and I wasn't the skirt-wearing sort, but that didn't stop me from thinking Judith was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen.
She was soft all around. Her face had a gentle heart shape, a smooth, broad forehead, and a sweet, pointed chin. Her skin was pale, a little pinkish, brought forefront by the red lipstick on her curved mouth. Wild blonde curls pushed against the light blue headscarf that encircled her head, the tails drooping on her rounded shoulders. To the left of her blouse collar, half-hidden by the purse strap, her name tag sat askew, the last piece of the puzzle. She wore the same outfit every day. A uniform. Shopgirl, maybe? That was my first guess, but the bus consistently dropped me off before her stop, so I had yet to decide what shop in the whole of Sterling to look in if I were inclined to prove the theory.
Asa told me to ask her.
But I'd rather keep my one good thing separate from reality. Good things rarely were how they seemed, anyway. I couldn't survive more disappointment.
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A/N: Wattpad WC: 3059
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