As proof, Badd offered the fact that in three years of summer visits, Jack had yet to show him how to put the worm on the hook.
"They promoted Gant to district chief," he said, giving his rod a slight flick and watching the bobber bounce in the algae-green water.
"Which one is that?" Jack asked, half-looking over his shoulder.
"The old guy. The one who laughs too much." Badd reached behind him and tugged another beer can out of its plastic rings. When Jack's blank expression continued, Badd added , "The one who likes strip poker."
Jack winced. "Oh, the orange suit guy."
"Yeah."
Margaret Faraday's 'just pretend you like us' plan had worked surprisingly well. Jack and Badd had been forced to spend enough time together that they'd been forced into awkward conversation to fill up the empty space. After a while the awkwardness had started to feel more natural, until they were actually spending time in each others' presence consensually. Hanging out with Margaret had been a little harder to do, given Badd's tendency to think that guys (and policewomen willing to be 'one of the guys') should only hang out with guys, but he had to respect her tendency towards straight talk. One could definitely see why her son had become a prosecutor—she had a disturbingly accurate ability to see right through you and not be shy in handing out her opinion on it.
Jack reeled in in his bobber and gave the empty hook a dissatisfied look. "So not a good thing, then?" he said as he flicked the rod back and sent his line out again.
"Not for the legal system." Badd cracked the can open and threw back a strengthening gulp. There had been murmurs about Gant, there were always murmurs about anyone who got better results than the lamentable departmental average, but Badd just disliked him on general principle. No cop should enjoy his job that much. "And now he's reformatting the department to get a better hold on it. We have bad but easily manipulated cops getting promotions, good cops getting demotions, and Angel Starr's out of a job completely. And of course his pal Lana Skye's just swapped over to the proscutor's office and everyone knows who she'll answer to."
The names probably meant nothing to Jack, but he made comforting assent noises and nodded. Badd set the fishing rod crosswise on his lab and sucked down more beer.
"And you?"
"I've got too good of a reputation. He can't have me demoted or fired and still have a legitimate reason for it."
"That's good."
"So he's having me transferred to Maine."
"Maine?"
"Some tiny little town on the middle of fuck-all nowhere and close enough to Canada to spit on a Mountie. They don't even have cell phones. Gant made up some bullshit about there being a special investigation unit that needs my experienced expertise, but we all know he just wants me out of the way."
Jack swore so softly that Badd could only hear the inflection. "Wow. That's a hell of a thing to do to you. How's Kay taking it?"
"Well..."
**"You didn't tell her," Margaret said, two hours and no fish later. "You've known for a full week and you haven't told her."
"I haven't told her yet," Badd corrected grudgingly. Kay's grandfather had stolen her away for impromptu hiking after they got back, leaving Badd alone in the kitchen with the scarier of the two senior Faradays. She'd set him to washing dishes. "Jack said he'd test the waters a little while they were out walking, see how she felt about the idea. I was going to tell her when we got home." The last part being an excuse he'd been using for a full week.
Margaret made a small disapproving tsk. "Putting it off won't make it any easier—no, look, it's still greasy. You have to scrub the rim as well as the inside."
Badd scowled and began redoing the pot for the third time. He didn't know how people put up with wives. "So I'm a coward. Sue me. I worked hard to keep her in Los Angeles, having to move out again after all that's gonna break her little heart." Give him a pack of heavily armed Mafiosos any day, if it meant he didn't have to say something that would make Kay upset.
Margaret turned her scrutinizing gaze from Badd to a serving spoon. It was deemed satisfactory and went in the drawer. "She's thirteen, Badd. Her heart's getting bigger. Besides, it wasn't Los Angeles you went to bat for. It was her right to stay with her family. You're what's important to her." She prodded him in the chest. They'd acquiesced to his desire to be called by his last name, but personal space was harder to deal with.
Byrne hadn't been fond of personal space either. On occasions it was heartbreaking to see how much his parents took after him.
"It's not been that long since she lost her father," Badd said as he raised his soapy hands from the sink. His voice softened. "A change this big…you know she's still having problems at school." Problems which couldn't be completely credited to the fact that naïve little Kay had been very glad to announce to her classmates that her daddy had been married to another man and she was getting to live with him now. No official action besides a few detentions, so far, but there had been at least one after school fistfight that the faculty had thankfully never seen. Kay had come home with a bruise on her shoulder and claimed the other girl had gotten off worse, as if that made things better.
"Kids handle things better than you'd think." Margaret leaned on the counter. Her eyes were unnerving to someone who'd grown jaded to interrogations and cross-examinations. "There's no shame in a cop calling in for backup. Given what I've heard about your career, you don't do it as often as you should."
"I'm getting better about it," Badd grumbled. Hadn't been shot once since he'd taken in Kay, and for him that was saying something. These days he couldn't afford to be as reckless with his own life. Fortunately he'd yet to run into a situation where he'd had to choose between caution and saving a hostage from a crazed gunman.
"It might actually be easier if you talk to her here. If she takes it badly, and I don't think she will, she'll come crying to me about it and I'll set her straight."
Badd smirked. "Neat trick."
"And in return for that, you're going to help me make cookies." Margaret opened the pantry and began pulling out a large bag of flour that had somehow made its way to a shelf two inches beyond the reach of her arms. Badd had to help stabilize her before she dropped the bag on her own head.
"You think that'll soften the blow?" he asked, carefully lowering the heavy bag to the counter.
"It might. Cookies rarely hurt matters and I've wanted to make them all week." She reached up and flicked the stick of his lollipop. "Sweet tooths run in the family, you know."
**Kay took it well. A little too well, actually, it made Badd uneasy. Formally asking her if she minded the transfer brought up a long silence and finally a quiet "only a little bit". She'd been remarkably tight-lipped even before the move started.
He didn't expect that she was lying, obviously. One of Byrne's strictest rules was that their family should never, ever distort the truth unless it was deeply important (or acting: Badd recalled Byrne telling him about comforting Kay through a crying fit before a school play because she thought that telling everyone that she was Bagheera the Panther counted as a lie). Secrets were permitted, as was pleading the fifth about misbehavior, but lies were the highest of crimes.
Still, 'only a little' covered a lot of ground. Hopefully she wasn't repressing anything for the sake of not upsetting her Uncle Badd. He tried to distract her by pretending there actually was some reason for the rearrangement of their lives besides petty department politics, that this was an exciting change rather than punishment.
And on paper it was. Despite its lack of cell reception Etros was a thriving port town, trading with both the eastern continents and the wilds of Canada. This also left it open to smuggling and criminal activity. Gant had recommended him as a 'specialist' in dealing with smuggling rings, which was not only disingenuous but subtly twisting the knife by focusing on the one prey Badd had never managed to defeat. Hopefully it meant he'd still get to see some action, but who knew what the natives might make of him.
Unfortunately Kay wasn't as easily swayed by tales of Uncle Badd as a secret agent as she would have been three years ago. Age made her more capable of taking care of herself, but it also made it harder for Badd to understand how to sway her. She'd been distant lately, even before he'd announced the move. He wasn't sure how to deal with it—or how much of it was his fault for being a bad father.
But she smiled, and she never lied, and he'd have to put up with that until he figured out what to do with it.
**A month and a half later Badd had packed up three people's lives, sold his car and Byrne's house, relocated the Badd-Faradays to the east coast, and made his first foray into the unknown wilds of the Etros police department.
"Chief Gant recommended you very highly, Detective Badd. He said you were an expert in smuggling and artifact trafficking." Badd's new district chief looked decent, but after Gant so would nearly anyone. He wore a normal-looking suit and tie, he had normal large eyebrows and pointy jaw, he didn't laugh at things that weren't funny or give Badd obnoxious nicknames. Truth be told, he seemed downright mundane after the oddities of Badd's old district. Nobody came to the work in a cowboy hat or a cocktail dress and there was nary a cravat in sight.
"He's too kind," Badd said, twirling his lollipop stick and looking down at the pudgy man with feigned interest.
"I'm sure you've got a lot to teach us. We're glad to have you on the team."
"Can't wait to start." Badd flashed him the false grin of formality and the chief returned in kind. The subtext of their words was mutual.
You know this is all bullshit, and I know this is all bullshit, but we have to go through this nonsense to make sure everything's settled. After we're done, then I can see what kind of man you really are.
Someone rapped on the door. Tap taptap tap taptap tap, a peppy little rhythm against the wood. The chief's grin grew a little more sincere. "That must be your new supervisor. Come in!"
The door opened behind Badd and a lanky man in a long white coat walked in.
Well, not walked. Sauntered, perhaps. Sashayed. His coat and red scarf flared out as he spun on his toe and flicked out his wrist to offer a folder to the chief. "Here's that report you wanted, boss man." The man's heel clicked against the ground as he stopped and tossed a glance at Badd. "And who's this worn old warrior?" he asked with a smile and a raised eyebrow.
The chief pointed from one to the other. "Inspector Cabanela, Detective Tyrell Badd."
"Ah, yes, the man from L.A. You're bit bigger than I was expecting, but I'm sure we'll find you a desk." His voice was slow, gleeful syrup, and he seemed to draw out the vowels of words that interested him. Cabanela flicked his wrist out and offered his hand for a shake.
Badd took his hand with the expression of someone petting a stranger's dog, wary of bites but wanting to still be polite. Despite the smoothness of his movements Cabanela's grip was surprisingly firm. "I just need a few days to get my daughter situated; she starts school in three weeks. Then you'll get me full time."
"Fine, just fine, you take your time with the little lady." Cabanela gave him a wink and snapped his fingers."I can't wait to see a bit of that big town skill in action." He whirled again and sashayed his way out the door.
Well, that was a something. Badd was left gaping, and pondering if Etros was more open-minded than he had expected. "Is he…"
"Always like that, yeah. Sharp as a scalpel, but he's always had a certain…unique flair." The chief looked apologetic. "We're a bit unconventional around here. I hope it's not too big of of an adjustment for you."
Badd spun the lollipop bulb with his tongue, chuckling softly. "You know, I think I'll fit in just fine."
**Etros was not the most urban and sophisticated town in the world, but it wasn't bad. People tended to be a bit more jovial and welcoming than they were back in Los Angeles, which gave Badd some hope that Kay would make new friends without excess violence.
His original assessment that the town was too rural to have cell phone reception was incorrect, it just happened to be in a town-wide dead zone. Something about the mountains, Badd hadn't quite been paying attention during that part of orientation. The local government compensated by providing the town with a massive number of public phones compared to the better connected parts of the country, and the ideal port conditions kept its economy from floundering. In general Etros was actually civilized and only bearably Canadian.
That didn't quell Badd's concerns about Kay's first day of school of high school.
"Can I just go back to bed?" Kay asked, leaning groggily on the doorframe with her backpack dangling from one shoulder. She'd upgraded from pink and blue to a rugged grey pack, large enough to fit one of the little computers that seemed so essential to life in the modern world.
"I'm pretty sure the nice people at Child Services wouldn't like you playing hooky," Badd said. He poured himself a cup of strong coffee from the cracked coffeepot. Kay's mother's family had stopped trying to steal his daughter, but the both of them still treated Child Services as some kind of boogieman that came in the night and took away bad fathers.
"Dang." Kay yawned and eyed Badd's coffee enviously. "Hey…Uncle Badd?"
"Yeah?"
Kay's fingers twisted into the strap of her backpack."What do I do if someone at school asks about you and Daddy?"
So that was it. Trapped between the desire to avoid trouble and the need to show her pride in her family. Badd had been there plenty of times. He nodded in sympathy. "The kids in LA gave you trouble over it, I know."
Kay gave a short, hard shake of her head that sent her ponytail swinging over her shoulder. She'd hit a tomboy phase that meant no makeup, no skirts and hair that was lucky if it got a brushing before she pulled it back. "Just a little," she said, trying to blow off how much it had stung. "It wasn't a big deal."
Verging on a lie, but a justifiable white one with plenty of wiggle room. Badd abandoned his coffee and walked to the door, resting a hand on his daughter's shoulder. "You tell them that your dad died and that your uncle Badd is taking care of you," he said.
A slower nod. "What if they think you're my real uncle? Like, dad's brother."
"Tell them I'm your legal guardian. It's true, and the rest isn't your business. You don't have to tell them we were…"
"Doing it?" Kay gave a little giggle in response to his startled expression. Badd pressed on the top of her head, gently forcing her to hunch down as she broke into a fit of laughter
"You are growing up way too fast," he said, meaning it more than she knew. "Stop it."
**Cabanela was a bit eccentric but he was good at his job, something that could be said of most of the cops Badd cared to know. After the obligatory friction between the New Guy and the Established Guy (or the Traditionally Minded Old Guy and The Guy Who Seemed To Be Possessed By Michael Jackson's Ghost) they'd gotten along reasonably well. It had helped that Cabanela had pulled a few strings in the department that seemed to worship him as a demigod and gotten Badd back onto active duty, and in thanks Badd allowed himself to be pressured into socializing. Poker night he'd be fine with, or football, maybe a little manly drinking, but agreeing to Karaoke Night? Badd considered that an official exchange of favors.
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And god, I know I'm one
That was before Cabanela took up the microphone and sauntered onto the stage. He was a lot of things—fop, ridiculous, arrogant, possessed of a dress sense several decades out of date—but he was definitely not a bad singer.
"I think Cabanela missed his calling in life."
"I think he only took us out here so he could show off."
Detective McCaw leaned on the table and sighed mournfully. "It's not us he's showing off for," he said, pointing across the bar. A trio of women several tables over were staring at him in intense fascination.
My mother was a tailor
Sewed my new blue jeans
My father was a gambling man
Down in New Orleans
McCaw eyed the women wistfully, chin nearly dipping into his rum and coke. "Gods, I wish I wasn't married." Given McCaw's remarkable physical similarity to Winston Payne, known toupee-wearer and five-time winner of Los Angeles' Most Annoying Prosecutor Ever award, Badd sincerely doubted that would help. He made a matched pair with his constant companion Officer Grady, who was unmarried but unlikely to be headed that way anytime soon.
Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk
And the only time he'll be satisfied
Is when he's all drunk
Most karaoke participants stood awkwardly during the instrumental sections and stared nervously out into the audience. Cabanela put them to good use, swaying his hips and running his hands down the microphone stand with his eyes closed as if in passion. He seemed to ache along with the lyrics, as if he too had suffered despair and degradation in some little house of ill repute down south. Every set of female eyes was trained on him, including the heavily pierced punk chick minding the bar. At least one of them was getting off on it, Badd imagined. Personally he didn't get the appeal.
Mothers…tell your children
Not to do as I have done
To spend your life in sin and misery
In the house of the Rising Sun
All right. A little of the appeal. If you liked that sort of thing. But Badd had an odd quirk of not being particularly attracted to men he didn't particularly like and that really killed any chance of interest. He stared too, but only because everyone was staring.
I've got one foot on the platform
The other on the train
I'm going back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain
The room exploded into applause when the music cut off. Cabanela took an elaborate bow, knee nearly touching the ground, before twirling his way off the stage with a flair of his spotless coat. A pair of drinks was waiting for him when he returned to the policemen's table, compliments of two fine ladies across the way.
"Hm…" Cabanela picked up the whiskey first and sipped delicately at it before tasting the daiquiri, apparently weighing their relative quality. Badd swirled his tequila sunrise and looked completely apathetic.
His…status hadn't been revealed to the department here but the white-coated inspector was meticulous enough to do a background check on anyone who came to work for him. If Cabanela knew he'd been screwing his partner back in LA he hadn't made a big deal about it, which suited Badd just fine. As long as he got treated as just one of the guys he didn't mind being expected to ogle women he had no interest in.
"Women buy him drinks." McCaw nearly wept as his forehead hit the table.
"I'm sure it's just artistic appreciation." He raised the whiskey glass and pointed at it, looking in the direction of the bar. A woman in a sequined red dress waved coyly at him, while a brunette two seats away looked sullen. Badd thought the daiquiri girl was prettier, but what did he know about these things.
"Think I could have the leftovers?" Grady asked, looking hopeful at the runner up.
Cabanela gave Grady a light slap on the shoulder. "All women are beautiful," he scolded. "It's just this one bought me the better drink."
Badd gently pushed the daiquiri in McCaw's direction. "Here. I think you need this more than he does."
Cabanela lounged back in his seat, one impossibly long leg up on the table. "By the way, if you and your little charmer want some family time, I'll be out for the next few days," he said to Badd as McCaw set to drowning his sorrows. "I'm not fond of making my unit do anything I wouldn't."
"Why? What are you out for?"
"High holidays. Two days now, and two days for Yom Kippur next a week. If anyone confesses any interesting sins out loud, I want to be there." He threw back half the shot of whiskey, savoring it before he swallowed.
Badd had lived in big cities long enough to approximately know what Cabanela was talking about, but still to be surprised by it. "You're Jewish?"
"A bit. Mostly in September."
"I thought you were from Georgia."
"Yep."
"There's Jews in Georgia?"
"Atlanta's lousy with 'em."
"Huh."
It wasn't completely at odd with what he'd seen of the unusual inspector. People could reconcile strange things, and Cabanela was a strange man to begin with. Most of the population of Etros seemed to have an odd local religion not dissimilar from the Shinto practioners he'd encountered back in LA, though thankfully he'd never seen the police try to use a spirit medium to break a case. People went to church on Sunday and swore by gods-plural on Tuesday that they hadn't been breaking into that convenience store on Monday. On a few visits to witnesses' or suspects' houses he'd seen small shrines tucked away in the corner of the living room. Cabanela himself wore a small, rune-engraved pendent around his neck and tended to make references to the gods having a hand in their more unusual cases. It seemed like his style to pick and choose what pleased him about a faith and leave behind the parts that bothered him.
And Badd could use the spare time to deal with that…other thing, that thing he'd been putting off scheduling. "Mind if I use it to recover from a parent-teacher meeting? Kay's school wants to talk to me about her behavior." He took a drink, as if bracing himself in preparation for the nasty deed.
Cabanela smirked without malice. "The little lady getting herself into trouble?"
"My guess is the teacher said something stupid, Kay mouthed off, I have to go in and play nice guy, and then we'll go have a special talk about how to keep your mouth shut around idiots saying words."
Cabanela laughed. "Bring her around next time Internal Affairs comes to visit. It'll be a nice object lesson." He knocked back the rest of the drink and stood up, keen eyes on the whiskey-bestower. "Have fun with the teachers," he said, adjusting his red scarf and tugging down the lapels of his coat.
Badd tossed off a mock salute. "And you have fun with your anonymous sex in the men's room, sir."
"Ohhhh, I plan to."
**Badd had left the trenchcoat in the car before entering Etros High School. It was best to separate the part of him that acted as Kay's legal guardian and the parts that had bullet holes in them. He checked the room number and rapped on the open door with two knuckles. Badd wondered if the teacher even knew how they were really related-maybe he could get through the meeting without that annoying bit of exposition.
Kay's teacher was in her classroom, eating her own lunch. She was an innocuous-enough lookin woman, a little frazzled, a little on the fiftyish side of forty-five, and utterly unremarkable. When Badd's shadow blocked the light to her collating she looked up and blinked at the very large, very... large man standing in her doorway. "Ah, hello," she said, standing up from her desk. "Are you Kay's father?"
"I'm...here for Kay, yeah." Badd sidestepped the statement and entered, offering a hand. "She gave me a note from you. Is something wrong?"
"Mmm... not wrong, precisely." She shook his hand with limp, well-lotioned fingers. "Your daughter certainly has a very active imagination, I must say. Very smart, one of my best students when she sets herself to a task. But I'm somewhat concerned about her responses to some of the creative writing assignments." The teacher went back to her desk, flipping through some folders and producing one with "Kay F." inscribed on the tab. She offered Badd a few of the sheets of paper, letting him read them himself.
Badd smiled softly. "She's always been pretty creative," he said, now merely curious instead of worried. Peh, probably wrote something that offended the teacher's delicate sensitivities, what garbage. It was a fairy tale style story, the sort of thing Kay had scorned at the age of nine in favor of reading about women who fought crime and solved mysteries. He went through the first page nodding, slightly smiling at the pretty princessness, smile dropping when he got to the…
"Oh, hell. I know what this is about." Badd sighed as he turned the page over. He'd really thought she was dealing better than this. "Yeah, that's um...the fluffy princess fantasy stuff is new, but that's not exactly fiction."
"Excuse me?"
The teacher sounded dubious, which for her was fair. Maybe she was used to having her kids try to write awkward romance or bad poetry, but Badd doubted she saw much high fantasy mixed with visceral descriptions of murder.
God damnit, Badd wasn't even sure if this was a good thing or not. Could be an early warning sign before something more sinister. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Three and a half years ago, Kay's father was stabbed to death." He read down the page, to a rather uncomfortably intimate description of a noble palace guard investigating the gaping wound in the king's chest while an evil witch cackled sinisterly in the background. "Just about like this."
The teacher blinked, then looked away. "Oh. Oh dear. Then you're her guardian...? I'm sorry, I had no idea."
"Guess nobody told you." It wasn't any of her business, but Badd would have thought Kay would have been more open about it. She was in the courthouse when it happened...nearly got killed herself before the suspect ran off." Aside from the depressing aspects it wasn't half-bad. Not well written, but she was only thirteen and probably not trying very hard with this particular piece of nonsense. Badd took some morbid amusement in the depiction of himself as a noble avenging knight ceaselessly pursuing the Crowfoot Thief.
The teacher nodded. "We do have counselors here, for the children," she said, full of that well-meaning concern that somehow managed to annoy Badd as much as rudeness. "Do you think I should set up an appointment for Kay? She seems to be faring well, but if she's writing stories about her father's death, it might be bothering her."
"It's been years. If she's getting it out on paper, maybe it's a coping mechanism," Badd replied, barely paying attention to what she was saying. He kept reading, curious to know where the epic would end—Yew dead, ideally. The story wobbled around for several more paragraphs, drawing out the melodrama of the young princess' sorrow, until the story dropped a ten ton weight on his chest.
The princess—the obvious stand-in for Kay—had found her father's diary. And her father was the Crowfoot Thief.
