Welcome to Cooper Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Tariq Ashkanani

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas and Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas and Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542031271

  ISBN-10: 1542031273

  Cover design by kid-ethic

  For Lucy

  CONTENTS

  Start Reading

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  So before we . . .

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Time passes . . .

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  It’s a long . . .

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  So, like I . . .

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Eddie and Nancy’s . . .

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rookie never speaks . . .

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It was a . . .

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  My mother was . . .

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Most of my . . .

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Another wasted day . . .

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  I went back . . .

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Rookie comes to . . .

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  They ask me to tell them a story.

  Friendly words, spoken by tired men wearing crushed suits, over lukewarm coffee in a paper cup and a bagel that was cold long before it ever reached me.

  Tell us a story.

  A red-hooded girl visits her grandmother. I think they’ve heard that one before.

  The problem is, I was never any good at telling stories. Never could work out the best place to start. It’s all about making an impact—see, I get that. Grabbing their attention and not letting up till you’re done. I get that part plenty. I got that part spilling out my pockets. Pick a moment, buddy, they say, like we’re friends. Like we’re in a bar and not in a room with the blinds closed.

  I think back over everything that’s happened these past few weeks. I remember the snow, snow up to my shins. Snow like ash, from a blackened sky to bury all beneath it. Flakes of the stuff gathering in my hair and in the folds of my ears. I remember watching as she stood at the window and stared out at me. She couldn’t see me—even from where she was standing she couldn’t see me, even from twenty yards away. I remember moving down her hallway, and the sound my wet shoes made on her wooden floors. I remember my hands didn’t shake like they used to, like they had the first time. And I remember music playing, but don’t ask me what it was. It was noise, and noise was good. I could hide in the noise.

  Or maybe I should just jump straight to the end. Give these boys what they want. The forest and the early morning sun and the spot where I led a man to his death.

  Only they don’t want that story. They want history. They want backstory. I can see it in their eyes, I’m losing them, and they interrupt with their questions, with their confusion. Back it up now, they say, like my memory’s an old SUV with a busted axle. A hand pushes a fresh cup of coffee across the table to help me remember.

  So I’ll take them back. Not to the very start, because I don’t know them all that well just yet and, besides, most of that stuff isn’t important to them. But I’ll lead them far enough. Back to my arrival in town, back to the tall grass and the cornfields, and that long freeway, cracked and uneven, and the sign that read Welcome to Cooper in bleached, looped writing.

  I push the coffee away, ask for something stronger. Glances all around but I keep my mouth shut, like I’d be happy keeping my mouth shut forever. Eventually someone shuffles out the door and I lean back in my chair to wait.

  I think I’ll start with the girl.

  Chapter One

  She was dead and dressed for dancing.

  Face up, that’s how they found her. On her back and stretched out across the grass like the only thing being killed was time.

  I stood at the back door next to Joe and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Snow drifted across her crowded backyard.

  I thought about that sign on the way into town. Some welcome.

  Her body was lying at the foot of a tree. Don’t ask me what kind. Big and brown, with blossoms on the branches. White petals, whatever. Rachel would have known what it was.

  A group of men had gathered. A murder like this, they always did. No-name men in chinos, from departments I didn’t care enough about to ask. Bureaucracy, who gives a damn. They weren’t here because they cared and I’m sure you all know something about that. As we got close I could see it in their eyes, in their bent heads, in the way they were talking, in the way they sucked back on their cigarettes, in the way they gazed down at her. Detached. Like she was a bad cut of meat. Like she was a problem.

  I followed Joe across the yard and he turned to me and said he wanted me to take point on this, and I said alright. I figured he was testing me, and I guessed this was as good a way as any. I wasn’t worried. I didn’t much care what he thought of me. People sometimes say I’m emotionally closed off, but people say a lot of things. A woman once said I was an asshole and I reckon she was right.

  The men shifted as we approached. I caught a glimpse of a bare arm in the fresh snow. Pale white.

  “Who’s your boy?” one of them asked Joe. I couldn’t tell who.

  “This here is Tommy Levine,” he said. “Make him feel welcome.”

  I swept my gaze around the group, got a perverse pleasure that no one bothered to try. Joe slid a cigarette into his mouth. Waved me on as he lit up.

  I pushed through to the center of the circle. Bodies shifting just enough to let me pass. Shoulders brushing, the tang of stale coffee and bad breath. When I emerged she was revealed to me in all her grotesque beauty, and when I stood over her it was like some tribal ritual.

  Black shoe, the fancy kind, and only on one foot. Light-brown pantyhose. A thin black dress and a slim leather belt. Her legs outstretched, her arms tossed up above her head, her hands crumpled together. A dark, heavy necklace of bruises around her neck. Blonde hair, long and curled at the ends. She was young, maybe mid-twenties, and if w
hoever had killed her had left her eyes behind she’d have been pretty, too. Hell, you’ve seen the photos.

  I felt it then. Uncoiling in my gut, warm and slick. That strange mix of feebleness and fury, like I wanted to throw up and beat my fists against a brick wall at the same time. Staring at a mutilated woman tends to do that to a guy.

  “What do we know?” I said, hoping someone would answer.

  Someone did. “Name’s Kelly Frances Scott. Or at least, we’re presuming so.”

  It was a bald man dressed all in white. I caught his eye. “This is Ms. Scott’s house?”

  “That’s right.”

  I crouched down beside her. The circle of men around me tightened.

  “Weather’s going to bury this crime scene,” I said. “We should get a tarp up.”

  “Already requested, Detective.”

  “Any sign of sexual assault?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. I’ll need to do a proper examination when we get her back to the station.”

  I stood, paced slowly around her.

  “Her hands,” I said, pointing. “Any sign they were bound?”

  “None.”

  “So he was strong,” I said. “Held her down, pinned her arms with one hand, strangled her with the other.”

  “Maybe she was unconscious,” one of them said.

  I looked at him—paunchy and greasy-faced—then back down at the woman. I wiped at my nose with the back of a gloved hand.

  “Maybe,” I said, then found the man in the white jumpsuit. “You got a time of death yet?”

  “Best I can do right now is sometime in the last eight hours.”

  “She’s not dressed for bed,” I said. “Her outfit, I’m guessing she was out last night.”

  “Robbery gone bad?” It was the greasy-faced detective again.

  “Not sure. She’s missing a watch.” I pointed to a band of paler skin on her wrist.

  “You think he took it?”

  “Back off, Lloyd.”

  That was Joe. I turned and saw him standing at the edge of the circle. He was staring at the body.

  “Kid says she’s missing a watch,” Lloyd said.

  “It’s not a damn robbery, Lloyd. You bothered to get your fat ass up those stairs, you’d probably find it on her nightstand.”

  “What did you just say?”

  “I said he didn’t break in to steal her goddamn TV. This is Homicide’s. Besides, I’ve seen your stats. You guys don’t need another red line this quarter.”

  I glanced back and forth between them. Lloyd’s round face was reddening. He shook his head, hard, then turned away. “You can have it, you prick,” he muttered as he pushed past.

  Joe waited until Lloyd was gone, then stepped forward. Some people took a step back. “Her eyes,” he said to me.

  The flesh around her sockets was torn and jagged.

  “He did them quick,” I said, “there’s no precision.” I paused. “He was angry.”

  Silence. Then, murmurs and movement, cellphones and fresh cigarettes.

  “Get a tent up,” Joe said quietly. “And get it up now, you understand me? Christ, it’s been snowing since we got here. We’ll be lucky if we find anything.”

  He left then, snapping off his gloves as he went.

  I took one final glance at the dead woman with the missing eyes, but she didn’t look back. Everything around me seemed to melt away, her empty sockets widening into yawning tunnels, and I knew if I didn’t turn away now they’d swallow me whole.

  Chapter Two

  I rode shotgun in Joe’s beat-up Ford through the thickening snow, the crappy heater blowing cold air on my legs as I pictured Kelly Scott’s sockets filling up with white.

  I’d just met Joe that morning. I’d arrived in town late on Friday, spent the weekend unpacking and eating shitty egg foo young with my switchblade because I didn’t own a fork, and then Monday morning rolled around and here I was.

  Well, no. Truth was, I didn’t have that much to unpack, and most of it was still in boxes. Truth was, I’d stayed in at my new apartment because I didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want to go outside, didn’t want to walk the empty streets. When I lay in bed it was quiet. No cars, no voices yelling. Cooper was a different world from DC, and I guess maybe I didn’t like that. But wasn’t that the whole damn point?

  Now, Joe’s a big guy. You’ve seen him. Not fat or out of shape, just big. Bulky. The kind of guy you wouldn’t want to face off against in a boxing ring. Like he’d had muscles, back in the day. Grey hair and grey stubble, crushed shirt, and a tie that’d probably had the same knot in it for twenty years. Large hands that squeezed the wheel tight enough to make it creak.

  We drove for ten minutes before he spoke. I got the feeling that driving in silence was a habit, and that suited me fine. He asked me if I wanted a smoke and I said no, then he asked me if I minded and I said no to that, too. So he clumsily patted his long trench coat down with both hands, steadying the wheel between his legs. The straight road weaved ahead. He tapped out a cigarette on his forearm and slid it straight into his mouth. Lit it with a practiced hand.

  “About back there,” he said, then clammed up. He blew smoke out in a long sigh.

  I stared out the passenger window, watched Cooper slide by. Single-story storefronts with broken windows; graffiti-tagged metal shutters; garbage spilling out of trash cans like moss. A thick blanket of snow would be a blessing.

  “Weather always this bad?” I asked.

  “Not usually in November.”

  “I’ve seen worse,” I said.

  Joe sent me a sideways glance as he cracked the window. “Sure you have,” he said, maybe sarcastically, I couldn’t tell. He knocked the end of his cigarette on the edge of the glass, sent hot ash to flutter and die.

  We spent a couple of blocks like that. Joe turned on the radio. I figured it was easier than talking. Country music, Kenny Rogers in between bursts of static. I tapped out the tune on the window frame.

  “You introduced me to everyone as Tommy,” I said.

  “What?”

  “At the crime scene. I prefer Thomas, is all.”

  Joe nodded. Let the silence between us grow a little more. “You a religious man, Thomas?”

  “Not really. Why?”

  Laughter from the radio host. A grating squeal that punctured the static.

  Joe said, “Only Thomas I ever knew grew up to be a priest. Went off to a big city somewhere. Phoenix, maybe.” A pause as he flicked more ash onto the cold street. “Don’t see the appeal, myself.”

  “Of Phoenix?”

  “Of big cities. I heard you used to work in DC.”

  “Couple years.”

  “Cooper must be quite the change.”

  I thought of it again. Lying in bed, a pressure in the stillness. I hadn’t realized how much I needed the noise to help me sleep.

  “It’s certainly quieter,” I said.

  “I’ll bet.”

  “You ever been to DC?”

  Joe took a draw, shook his head. “I check in on the news every four years, see who’s in charge. That’s enough for me. Why’d you leave?”

  “I needed a change.”

  A grunt. He looked at me, swung his cigarette toward my chest. “Well, you still dress like you’re in DC. Lose the suit.”

  “What’s wrong with my suit?”

  “You see anyone else back there wearing one?”

  “I’m just trying to make a good impression.”

  “You want to make a good impression, you help me catch this guy. People around here see you wearing that on their doorstep, they’ll think you’re trying to sell them something. Save the fancy stuff for court.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “Don’t mention it. What you carrying?”

  “My gun? Smith and Wesson Model thirty-six.”

  Joe’s eyebrows peaked. “Revolver man. Dirty Harry. Didn’t have you pegged.”

  “For a violent sociopath?”
r />   “What, you didn’t like that movie?”

  I shrugged. “I seem to remember his revolver being a little bigger.”

  Joe grunted again, then tossed the remainder of his cigarette out the window and wound it back up. The car roared. I got the impression we were done talking.

  Cooper was small, but spread out. We followed the main street through the middle of town. I watched kids laughing on the corners, bumping fists filled with baggies like they’d seen on TV. Apartment blocks and convenience stores, and every so often a glimpse of the wide expanse beyond. Cornfields and cattle, scrubland, and farther out still the swelling embankment that marked the edge of the Pine Ridge and the Nebraska National Forest. I’d never been somewhere with this much open space. Ironic, maybe, that it would feel so oppressive.

  It was nearing noon by the time we arrived. Joe said he had stuff to take care of, barely waited for me to close the door before tearing out of the parking lot. I spent the rest of the day at my desk. Paperwork and handshakes. The usual first-day bullshit.

  Flicking through my morning’s crime scene notes, I kept thinking of Kelly Scott. I couldn’t stop seeing her eyes. Images of them sliding out of her head. A blade slicing at her optic nerves. I tossed my notebook and stood up. It was after six, and I needed a drink.

  Stingray’s was a small bar just around the corner from the station, all red leather and high stools. A neon sign flickered in the window. It was happy hour.

  Inside, my shoes crackled on the sticky floor. The air was heavy with a strong, sweaty musk. A lone bartender was behind the counter, dressed all in black. She was slowly drying a rack of glasses. Her name was Mary, but of course I didn’t know that yet.

  She didn’t look like a Mary. Not that first time. She looked like a goth, or whatever the word is nowadays. Dark hair with a fierce streak of pink down one side, cut into a sharp bob that ended just under her chin. She didn’t look up as I approached.

  I tried to pull out a barstool, found them bolted to the floor. Yeah, it was that kind of place. Sliding onto the hard, worn padding I noticed a man sitting in the corner of the room by himself. Hunched over a plate of fried eggs and bacon.

  “What can I get you?” the bartender asked me, slapping the rag she’d been using to dry across one shoulder.