The Shoal of Time Read online

  Synopsis

  Michele “Micky” Knight, a New Orleans PI, meets an out-of-town team of investigators who are working a human trafficking case. They want someone local to show them around. It sounds easy, and a woman with smiling green eyes is asking. But it stays easy only if Micky stops asking questions—and she’s never been good at that. What starts out as a tourist tour of the underside of New Orleans turns into a risky game of cat and mouse, and twists even further as Micky is caught between the good guys and the bad guys, each willing to do whatever it takes—including getting rid of an inconvenient PI—to achieve their ends. Who can she trust? And who’s trying to kill her?

  The eighth Micky Knight mystery.

  The Shoal of Time

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  The Shoal of Time

  © 2013 By J.M.Redmann. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-008-9

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: December 2013

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editors: Greg Herren and Stacia Seaman

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  By the Author

  The Micky Knight Mystery Series:

  Death by the Riverside

  Deaths of Jocasta

  The Intersection of Law and Desire

  Lost Daughters

  Death of a Dying Man

  Water Mark

  Ill Will

  The Shoal of Time

  Women of the Mean Streets: Lesbian Noir

  edited with Greg Herren

  Men of the Mean Streets: Gay Noir

  Edited with Greg Herren

  Night Shadows: Queer Horror

  edited with Greg Herren

  Acknowledgments

  You know who you are—the ones who have been nagging, begging, pleading with me for a certain plot element. Be careful what you ask for; you may get it. This has been a hard book to write—not like the others were a walk in the park. Sitting in front of a computer trying to make words turn into worlds is never easy. (Nor are the words ever as perfect as the vision we have in our brains.) I have to admit there are moments when I come home from the day job and I’m tired and want nothing more than to turn my brain off, and I wonder why I do this. But in those moments, I remember the coterie of readers and writers who keep me sane and focused. Yes, that would be you. Even when you’re nagging, begging, and pleading. Thank you.

  Of course a big thank you to Greg Herren for his editorial brilliance and calmness, especially as I kept sliding deadlines. And he didn’t even add extra weight at the gym. (Well, not much.) I also need to thank the motley and wonderful crew who met us downtown in NYC at City Hall—one of my oldest and dearest friends, Maude Brickner; a dear new friend, Lizz; the inimitable Rob Byrnes; and in a surprise guest appearance, Greg Herren. Oh, and Gillian for suggesting it in the first place. And Greg, Rob, and Gillian for being stalwart enough to come to the Lambda Awards after.

  Also a big thanks to Cherry and Beth, my friendly computer geeks and all-around fun gals. More charbroiled oysters soon. Mr. Squeaky and Arnold, because I’m a lesbian and we have to thank our cats. My partner, Gillian, for all the joy in us both spending evenings at our respective computers working on our respective books.

  There are many people at my day job who keep me sane—or don’t point out to me that I’m not—and are greatly understanding about the writing career. Noel, our CEO and my boss, for his tireless leadership and letting me run off to do book things. My staff is great and makes my job easy enough that I have time to write—Josh, Narquis, Lauren, Joey, Petera, and all the members of the Prevention Department. I would love to be able to write full-time, but since I have to have a real job, I’m very lucky to have one of the best ones possible.

  Also huge thanks to Rad for making Bold Strokes what it is. Ruth, Connie, Shelley, Sandy, Stacia, and Cindy for all their hard work behind the scenes, and everyone at BSB for being such a great and supportive publishing house.

  To GMR

  For being a fast reader and willing to drive through Illinois for me. It is the small daily things that eventually make a life and a love.

  But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,

  We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases

  We still have judgment here, that we but teach

  Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return

  To plague th’ inventor: this even-handed justice

  Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice

  To our own lips

  Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7

  Chapter One

  Life is full of stupid moments, most of them not chosen.

  You know what I mean—bitching about a coworker, not realizing she’s two feet behind you. Trying to find your sunglasses when they’re on the top of your head. Taking a turn and realizing that all the cars are coming at you. Putting your keys in a secure place you can’t remember.

  “Hey, give me your money,” he muttered at me.

  Dark, rainy, the deepening chill bite of winter, my head had been down watching for wet, slippery spots and I hadn’t noticed anyone else on the street.

  Occasionally stupid turns to tragic. Mostly we pay what I call stupid tax—going back to the grocery store to get the one thing we forgot, standing in line and paying to replace the lost license, waiting in the rain for the friend with the spare key. There is a lot of stupid in the world, both ours and others’, and we pretty much stumble over it every day.

  Today had been stupid on steroids.

  Weather was supposed to affect crooks, too. At least that had been my theory when I decided to head out after dark to pick up food made by someone other than myself.

  It had been a long—dare I say it?—stupid day. People who promised to call right back and hadn’t. Traffic that included a car driving over the speed limit in the left lane on Claiborne with the passenger opening his door to upchuck into the right lane, which left me hoping the rain would clean off whatever got on my tires. A client who changed her mind about wanting me to follow her husband to see if he had an on-the-side girlfriend.

  I mostly avoid messy domestic cases and had only taken this one as a favor to a friend. It took a stupidly exasperating amount of time to explain to her she still owed me for the hours I’d spent on her case. Her calling-off call came just as I had returned to my office after a fruitless morning of following said husband. Annoyingly, I hadn’t caught him at anything, but he was a player, too easy with his smiles and glances at anything female, handing a business card to the young chick at the coffee-shop counter. Happily married men don’t prowl like that.

  If the wife didn’t want to know—well, wanted to know but didn’t want evidence that would require her to admit knowing—that was her affair, not mine. She called back three times asking for a discount since I hadn’t finished the case.

  Webster’s, when you update your dictionary, I have the perfect picture f
or annoying.

  The day had started out in the summer, acting as if the calendar didn’t say something entirely different, sunny and in the seventies, and the temps had plunged thirty degrees since I left this morning in light pants and a T-shirt that had me underdressed long before the first of the annoying wife calls. Winter here is one of the reasons people with snow phobias move to this part of the world; it rarely gets below freezing and even when it does, it doesn’t stay there. Yes, Minnesota, I’m talking to you. But, as proven by today, it can be from annoyingly smug to unpleasantly cold in all too short a span of time.

  New Orleans is a damp city, held between a mighty river and a large lake, exits west and east over water. In the summer, the humidity turns it to a steam bath, in the winter, a damp cold that blows through every crack in a building or clothes.

  When I finally got home I was bone-deep cold, too pissed at the events of the day to be tired, and too tired to un-piss myself and get in a better mood. The house was chilly and dark. No cat, no person, nothing living to greet me. I quickly turned the fans off and the heat on—I hate days when I have to do that—threw on a ratty sweatshirt and jacket because I was too chilled to take off my clothes or to spend time finding what we call winter clothes down here.

  Knowing the contents of my refrigerator would turn into a science experiment any day now, I had decided on a quick hike into the French Quarter, with its dense population of food possibilities, and hoped the house would be warmer by the time I got back.

  And now I was standing on a dark patch of Esplanade Avenue with a young punk in front of me demanding my money.

  He was slight, with one of those faces that could have been between fourteen and forty, shadowed as it was by the faint light at the end of the block and the brim of his pulled-low hat. Cowboys. Fucking stuck up by a Dallas Cowboys fan. His face was thin and long, a bare wisp of a beard on his chin. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, thin and faded, not heavy enough for the chill in the air and hadn’t thought to pull the hood over his head. Guess he decided the fuckin’ Cowboys hat was enough of a disguise. One hand was hanging by his side; the other was hidden in the sweatshirt pocket, outlined by a bulge that could be a gun. Or his fingers in a bang-bang pose.

  It was the French Quarter; I was a woman alone. He probably assumed I was a tourist who got lost in the old buildings and forgot this was a real city and not some manufactured playland for visitors.

  Most of the time stupid is random. Every once in a while we choose it.

  I knew what I was supposed to do, be calm and unthreatening, defuse the situation and quietly give him my money.

  I also knew I wasn’t going to do it.

  Instead I was going to do something stupid that might get me killed. I didn’t give a damn. I was tired of being civilized and polite and wanted to kick someone, and this poor kid had just given me an excuse.

  “Be cool,” I said quietly. “I’m getting my wallet.” Using two fingers, I tried to extract it from my front pocket, but it was chilly and damp and I couldn’t get a good grip. I finally managed to get it out, but just as I was lifting it to offer to him, it dropped out of my hand onto the sidewalk.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, reaching down to pick it up. I fumbled for a moment with the leather on the slick, wet street. Just like a stupid woman tourist would.

  But I wasn’t any kind of tourist.

  I shot up, throwing the wallet at his face, following immediately with a kick to his gun hand.

  My foot hit flesh, not metal. I kicked again, this time in the crotch.

  The one thing I had changed was my shoes, from low-slung loafers to a beat-up old pair of cowboy boots. Much warmer than my earlier shoes, with heels and toes made for kicking.

  He covered the kicked area with his good hand and sank to his knees in pain.

  I yanked the hood, pulling it tight around his neck.

  He coughed, said, “Hey, let me breathe.”

  “You try to hold me up and I’m supposed to be nice?”

  I grabbed the Cowboys hat and tossed it into a puddle, landing it on top of greasy fried chicken bones.

  “Hey, that’s a good hat.” He struggled to get up.

  I kicked his foot out and he thudded back down on his knees. I yanked the hood, pulling him down, his face a few inches from his soaked hat and the rotting food.

  “It was my good money you were trying to steal.”

  Without the hat and this close, I could see he was young and should have been home studying instead of out thieving. His small beard was probably the only hair he could grow.

  I used my knee to shove him all the way to the ground, being kind enough not to put his face in the puddle. With my knee in his back, one hand holding his sweatshirt, I quickly patted him down with the other hand. Just because he didn’t have a gun wasn’t proof he didn’t have other unpleasant weapons like a knife or brass knuckles.

  There were a lot of bumps under his sweatshirt, but they were all wallet-shaped. Baby boy had been busy this evening.

  Thieves—and too many other people—seemed to live by immediate experience. If they did it and didn’t get caught, then they wouldn’t get caught. My young thief had been pushing his luck.

  As I was pushing mine. He was recovering from the kick to his crotch.

  I was still a woman; worse, one with gray in her hair. His ego wasn’t happy about the situation.

  He suddenly struggled under me, trying to push up with his hands and legs, twisting under me. I heard him mutter, “Fucking bitch.”

  I yanked hard on his hood, but he pulled on the zipper, halfway opening the sweatshirt and freeing his neck. He may have been slight, but he was strong. And desperate.

  I had been too nice and not kicked his pretend gun hand hard enough. He used it to grab my ankle. My other leg was planted in his back, so that was my only support.

  No more being nice. I’d started feeling sorry for him because he was young. And stupid, but that goes without saying. Most crooks are stupid. The smart ones work for banks.

  I slammed my weight down on him, so I was almost flat against his back, shoving his face into the sidewalk.

  Maybe an effective tactic, but not a pleasant one. He smelled like an unbathed wet dog. But I didn’t have time to worry about unpleasant odors. He was still struggling to throw me off. He let go of my ankle, using the hand to lever himself up.

  I had wanted a fight. I just hadn’t wanted one I would lose.

  Don’t be kind, I reminded myself. I put one hand on the back of his neck—I’d worry about cleaning the dirty-dog grime off later—hoping between that and my knee in his back I could keep him down long enough to figure out how the hell to get out of this.

  Be nice, give him his hat back. I reached over his shoulder to the puddle and slapped it and a few chicken bones on his face.

  He sputtered and, as I had hoped, used his hands to grab the dripping, stinking cap away.

  I shoved myself up into a standing position, aiming a kick between his legs on the way up. Then another when I was fully standing.

  He yelped and flopped away, enough to land in the puddle. He let the water distract him, clearly not trained well enough to know that in a fight, nothing matters, not getting wet or dirty or being hit; you have to focus intensely on winning.

  I kicked him again in the crotch. This time he curled up into fetal position, not worrying about the puddle or the chicken bones anymore, pain his only focal point.

  One last insult. He’d be down for at least a minute or two. I rifled under his jacket for the stolen wallets, grabbing as many as I could. One hand weakly tried to stop me.

  “Don’t move or I’ll kick you again. And again.”

  His only answer was a groan.

  I stuffed the wallets into my jacket as he had in his and then walked rapidly away.

  As I got to the corner, I briefly looked back. He was still on the ground.

  I kept walking, moving as quickly as I could without running. I didn’t want to be
running with a bunch of stolen wallets on me.

  Okay, I’m not perfect—I had a brief argument with myself about keeping the money. There was a high probability that Mrs. I-Changed-My-Mind would be slow, extremely slow to pay me, but I had other cases and some active billing on my part would bring in money owed me. Maybe it would be enough to cover the bills.

  There was a fire station at the corner of Frenchmen and Esplanade, near the river. But firemen would ask questions. There was a place where they provided HIV services right across the street. I threw the wallets behind their iron gate. Perfect. Do-gooders would do the right thing.

  There are advantages to being a woman. No one pays much attention when you’re standing in front of a closed place and shoving things through the opening in the door. At least four different groups of people walked by and none of them even glanced at me.

  That taken care of, I headed into the Quarter in search of food.

  Taking that kid on had been major stupid.

  What scared me was that I didn’t regret it.

  Chapter Two

  I found a quiet corner in a pizza place on Decatur. My plan had been to get something to go and head back home. But the house wasn’t calling me; instead, I found I wanted the distractions of lights, watching people go by, the ritual of perusing a menu, waiting for food. I also wanted plenty of time for the stupid thief to get up and go home. Most of the other tables were couples or groups. It was boisterous, people out to party.

  I was alone in my small world. Food, getting warm, that was all I’d think about. And maybe not doing anything stupid on the way home.