Chapter 25-Picnics and Paranoia
Disclaimer: Moonlight belongs to all of us! Especially since CBS didn't want it!
A/N: Surprise! Bet you thought you wouldn't be seeing me again. Well you won't get rid of me that easy. Mainly because this story keeps going round and round in my head. I just need to win the lottery so I can devote my time to writing and not have to worry about earning money to buy food!
I think we were going to the beach weren't we?
Make It Mine by Jason Mraz
I keep my life on a heavy rotation. Requesting that it's lifting you up, up, up and away,
And over to a table at the gratitude café.
And I am finally there. And all the angels they'll be singing
Ah la la la; ah la la la; I la la la la love this!
Well I don't wanna break before the tour is over.
I'm gonna make it mine, Oh yes I... ……I will own it.
I'm gonna make it mine, yes I'll make it all mine...
Timing's everything. And this time there's plenty I am balancing.
Carefully and steady. Reveling in energy that everyone's emitting.
Well I don't wanna wait no more. Oh I wanna celebrate the whole world!
I'm gonna make it mine. Oh yes I'm following your joy.
I'm gonna make it mine. Because I... I am open.
I'm gonna make it mine. That's why... I will show it.
I'm gonna make it all mine.
MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT
"Hey Mick! You're starting to be a regular! You must live in the neighborhood 'cause you're surely not traveling clear across town just to shop here."
Mick grinned broadly at the older looking man behind the tall glass deli counter. There was something special about being known by your first name at the local grocery after so many years of anonymity. Alan Simons was in his late fifties and ran Simon's Grocery and Deli with the help of his wife, one store clerk and a couple of local teens who bagged groceries, stocked shelves and cleaned.
"Morning Mr. Simons. Yeah, actually, I live just a few blocks from here." Mick removed his sunglasses and used them to point in the general direction of his building. "I'm trying to get reacquainted with the neighborhood. I've…uh…been away for awhile."
The grocer walked around the display case, leaned one arm on the top and appraised the man yet again. Mick had been in his store almost every day for about the past week. The first time he was wound pretty tight and it was obvious he'd been on the losing end of a bad fight. Maybe with one of the local punks who occasionally came into the store and walked back out with a five fingered discount on something. However he'd been injured, the cuts and bruises were healing and he seemed more relaxed now. Alan liked people and loved to engage his customers in conversation while they were shopping. There was always a story behind each one and he surmised there was quite a tale behind this lanky young man who had started frequenting his store recently.
"Coming back home again, are ya?" he asked. He hadn't seen Mick before last week and wondered how he fit into the neighborhood. In a half dozen blocks of each other the high rise penthouse apartment buildings and offices to the north gave way to more modest single level businesses of grocery stores, coffee shops and dry cleaners. Another half dozen blocks to the south brought you to what had once been an affluent area with big old homes built for families with lots of children. Now the dilapidated houses had hordes of kids living in them but they were usually stoned, drunk or looking to get that way by stealing from the businesses languishing in the middle ground.
Mick's smile softened and he looked at the keys he was holding in his hand before raising his head and meeting the gaze of the storeowner. "Yeah, something like that."
Alan nodded. Not a highriser, he thought. Those people came to his store for the convenience but always had a hurried, condescending attitude. Mick was a little too genuine to be one of them. Maybe he was trying to reclaim one of those vintage homes. There was starting to be an influx of people trying to fix up those old monstrosities. They were money pits for sure but if you did the work yourself the rewards of seeing it come back to life was worth it. It was a small step in the reclamation of the neighborhood and Alan was all for that.
"Well, there ain't nothin' like it. Family and friends, Mick! That's what life is about and you can take that to the bank," he said, pointing a finger at him for emphasis.
"So!" He stood up straight, clapped his hands and rubbed them together, all the while smiling. "What can I get for you today? I got some rib-eyes back here that'll melt in your mouth!" he said, jerking his thumb at the cooler behind him. "What do you say?"
Mick shook his head. "Sounds good but I'll take a rain check on the steaks. Today I need picnic food. "I…" he said, pausing to take a deep breath, "…am going to the beach!"
Alan looked at Mick even more closely. The slender man had declared the beach as his destination with as much enthusiasm someone else might use to proclaim they were going to Paris. Judging from his light complexion it didn't appear as though he'd logged a lot of beach time lately. The sunny California coast might do him good. He had a look about him that said he spent way too much time indoors. Maybe he was one of those techie people who always worked inside on computers and stuff.
"The beach? Well then, that calls for an entirely different type of food." He wandered back behind the counter and hefted a huge block of white cheese from the interior. "You know, it's not really a picnic if it's only for one. You got someone going with you?" He watched as the smile widened and the eyes crinkled with delight.
"Yep! My best girl. I promised her I'd provide the picnic lunch but I'm not very good at putting this type of stuff together." His eyes grazed over the assortment of meats and cheeses in the trays behind the glass.
The grocer shook his head and chuckled. His best girl? That was a description his father has used when talking about his mother. He'd always called her 'his best girl'. It seemed a very old-fashioned statement from someone as young as the man before him.
"Well, your 'best girl' deserves nothing but the best! I'll put you together a picnic she'll never forget!"
From the back of the store Alan's wife watched as her husband talked with Mick. She was trying to understand the incongruities of seeing someone she knew didn't eat buying food on a regular basis. The cuts and bruises were odd too. She'd never seen a vampire with an injury that hadn't healed in seconds. Maybe this was a different Mick. Not St. John but Adams or Smith. After all it had been years since she had last seen him. She could be mistaken.
But then he turned and she saw his eyes clearly for the first time. She knew without getting any closer that they were a distinctive color combination that swirled between hazel and blue depending on the lighting. Her hand fluttered up to her mouth at her intake of breath and then drifted down to rest across her neck She'd seen those eyes drain of color just before feeling the exquisite touch of his fangs at her throat. She'd never had sex that was as good as having an experienced vampire feeding from her neck and Mick had been her favorite. He never rushed the feeding and made sure she was as satisfied as he was. The climax would roll on and on, cresting in her body like waves thundering on the shore until she was spent and relaxed. The feeling of euphoria would last for days afterward and would draw her back into the rotation of freshies at Josef's as soon as she was able.
He might not remember her from all the other girls in Josef's harem so many years ago but she certainly remembered him. And she wondered what change he had gone through in order to gain his humanity back. All the girls had known that Mick was reluctant to fully embrace his vampirism. But that was why they had liked him. Josef had paid them well and never mistreated them but there was never any doubt as to why they were there. They were food, first and foremost. And as such they needed to be cared for much like a rancher cares for his herd of cattle. With Mick she had never felt like she was prostituting herself. She was a human woman first. And after each rapturous feeding, her body reeling from the pleasure and her mind from his enthrallment, he would lay her down gently and she would hear him say, "I'm sorry."
MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT
There hadn't been much of an attempt to stop the fire. The building was already engulfed by the time the fire units had arrived. Fueled by the desert dry wood in the structure and the bottles of liquor stored in the bar it had gone up in a fury of flames. The concrete barricades, used to prevent drunken patrons from driving through the building by accident, were blackened by soot and formed a partial perimeter around the smoldering remains.
Carl stalked once more around the gravel driveway looking at the rubble from several different angles in the fresh morning light. All of them had shown him the same disheartening picture. There was nothing left. Forensics hadn't had the time to gather the evidence and any prints or blood that had been there were now part of the sandy desert landscape.
Completing the circuit around the charred remains of the bar he walked back to his car, sat on the hood with one foot propped up on the front bumper and stared dismally out at the desert. He'd come directly to the bar from Mick's last night and then spent the rest of the early morning hours in his office. He was hot, tired and hungry. But he had also come to some difficult decisions.
The first was that he wasn't going to keep kicking himself in the ass about letting Rodriguez go. Taking a statement from a man about some avenging angel hauling Tejada's ass out into the desert night would not help the case and would only undermine his position. He was about to head down a lonely road and didn't need his colleagues throwing the Angel con Venganza around if they were ever asked just when they saw what they thought might have been his first break with reality.
He was pissed off that the little Mexican had come back and torched the place. The forensics team had been very clear that they'd had to run him out of the building just before the fire took off. Evidently he hadn't wanted Carl to find any solid evidence of the Angel's visit to the Hollenbeck which pushed Carl just a little further down that lonely road he'd started down back at Bobby's.
Second, he was going to run the investigation into Lindsay's murder and Tejada's disappearance strictly by the book. Every 'i' was going to be dotted and 't' crossed. He was going to demand attention be paid to details and every step they made would be documented in triplicate. No one would be able to point a finger at his investigation and say he hadn't followed procedure. If, and he hated to say it but he thought this was a big 'if', anyone was ever brought in for either crime, he didn't want them walking because of shoddy work. However, he was also going to run his own investigation.
He looked behind him through the windshield of his car and stared at the innocuous envelope that had been waiting for him when he'd arrived at his desk last night. He turned away and let out a hiss of disgust as he rubbed his hand over his face.
The envelope contained an extensive records search that Lindsey had ordered using the name Mick or Michael St. John in Los Angeles. The results were surprising narrow, only three over the last eighty five years, and they grew progressively superficial as the time line advanced. The Mick St. John, born circa 1976, had the vaguest history of them all and was apparently the Mick St. John currently operating as a private investigator in Los Angeles.
The earlier version was also a PI, date of birth anywhere from 1940-50, depending on the document, and was the one most likely who had worked with Bobby. There was no record of a marriage but there was a divorce decree in 1982 from one Coraline DuVall. This Mick seemed to merge with the current one shortly after a certain little girl by the name of Bethany Turner was kidnapped by an unknown woman. St. John Investigations had been hired by the mother to find Beth and she was returned four days later unharmed. No charges were ever filed. After that the paper trail on this Mick St. John cooled until around eight years ago. That would have been when current Mick supposedly took over the business from his dad. Except that there was no record of a Mick St. John senior. As a matter of fact, there was no verifiable family history on either of them with the exception of the ex-wife.
The first Mick St. John, and apparently the original, was born Michael Andrew St. John on November 13th, 1922. The son of Evan and Beatrice. One brother, named after the father, was killed in a military skirmish in China several years before the world went to war for the second time. His sister, Rebecca, passed away just four years ago at the ripe old age of ninety, outliving her husband and daughter by many years. Little Micky didn't seem to be named for anyone and must have been a surprise to his parents because he was ten years younger than his sister and twelve years younger than big brother.
There were school records and even a military record showing he'd been in the army for four years and fought in WWII. He'd been a medic, was wounded in battle and honorably discharged. He returned home just before the war ended and married one Coraline DuVall in 1952. In a perverted twist of fate what the war spared the St. John's had been taken from them during peace time and on American soil. Their son disappeared the night of his wedding and was never seen again.
His parents filed a missing person report but there were never any leads. He and his new wife just vanished. No one seemed to care much about the wife because there was never a file started on her except in connection to Mick St. John's disappearance, but the general consensus was that she was somehow responsible for his disappearance. Whatever the case, neither of them surfaced again until the divorce decree in 1982, thirty years later. Coincidental?
It might be crazy. And he might be nuts. But it was not coincidental. The three men were connected. Hell…he was beginning to think they were the same man. Now how fucked up was that? Eight years on the force, hundreds of investigations under his belt and he thought a man born in 1922 was still alive eighty five years later and looking not a day over thirty.
Of course the photo the researcher had unearthed helped. The notes said it had been taken in 1949. Lee Jay Spaulding had included it in his book to give a face to the man he said had beaten and tried to kill him.
Carl knew the moment he laid eyes on the picture that it was the same Mick St. John he'd visited last night. And the same one who'd made Bustos piss himself in the interrogation room without doing anything more than talking to him. He'd bet a year's salary on it. He was that sure.
How it happened to be true he didn't know and couldn't, at this point, understand. He knew he'd been asking all the right questions but he kept coming up with what he thought were the wrong answers. Now he believed they weren't so wrong. Outlandish and bizarre but not wrong.
This man-if that was what he was-whose life spanned over eighty years, had been friends with his dad and Bobby. According to Bobby, Carl wouldn't even be here today if Mick hadn't stepped in at the right moment. Carl owed the man his dad's life and his own. But he still intended to find out how it was possible.
Tejada's disappearance was a concern only if the bastard had escaped. If he'd been murdered by an unknown party Carl did not necessarily feel any remorse over the loss. But he needed to know the mechanics of it. How it occurred and how Mick was involved. Because, without a doubt, Carl knew he was. And he didn't know what scared him most. That a man might live that long and not age…or that he believed it was even possible.
MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT
It has to be here. It has to be!
She was on her hands and knees on the bathroom floor running her fingers over the molding and into the corners between the sink cabinet and the tub, then across the front and around the other side next to the toilet. Sitting back on her heels she grimaced at the feel of the grime, gave a little shiver and grabbed a towel to wipe her hand with.
She'd always considered herself to be a fairly good housekeeper but she'd never gotten nose to floor with her house before. She might have to reconsider her cleaning abilities after this little foray into what she had thought was a relatively sanitary bathroom.
There wasn't room for her to peer around the back of the toilet so she had no choice but to reach behind it.
"Come on…come on. Where is it!" she muttered, her face next to the cool white surface of the tank.
Withdrawing her hand she had nothing to show for her effort except a fine film of moist dirt and some minute pieces of toilet paper. Not as bad as she had thought it might be but it hadn't produced the results she'd wanted. Wiping her hand again she eyed the toilet bowl.
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," she said grimly as she raised the rim and plunged her right arm into the throat of the porcelain throne, reaching as far back as she could and wiggling her fingers along the unseen, and previously unexplored, depths of the fixture.
She had noticed the ring was not in the jewelry dish when she went back to her apartment to gather her beach gear yesterday morning. It had played at the back of her mind all day while she was with Mick as she thought of different scenarios for it not being where she last remembered seeing it.
Upon returning home late last evening she'd done a cursory search of the bath and bedroom. After showering and changing into her nightshirt she gave fresh water to the roses and checked over the counter surfaces in the kitchen. She was sure it was in the house…she had just misplaced it.
She went to bed and lay for twenty minutes while her mind searched behind her closed lids for any obvious place she'd forgotten to look. The apartment was barely four rooms and that included the bathroom. There just weren't that many places it could be.
At 11:30 she came out of a doze with a brainstorm that she might have hidden the piece of jewelry rather than just lost it. Her mind had been playing tricks on her of late and she was finding it increasingly difficult to blame everything on the stress of losing Josh. She was beginning to feel like the butt of all the blonde jokes she'd heard over the years. Only she wasn't laughing. She just knew that she really didn't like to be alone in the apartment anymore. Maybe it was time to find another place. One without the memories of Josh lingering in every room.
Not waiting for her eyes to adjust to the overhead bathroom light she pulled a new box of tampons out of the cabinet and turned it upside down. This was where she stashed what she considered to be her 'good' jewelry. The cellophane wrapping was still intact on the top of the box but she'd cut it away from the bottom giving her access to open the lower flap. Her diamond earrings were there in a little plastic baggie and the bracelet her mom had given her for her college graduation. But no ring.
She opened the flap again, emptied the contents on the counter and rolled her fingers over the sealed tubes to separate them. The results caused one corner of her mouth to tighten in disappointment. After completely dismantling the box to be sure the ring hadn't slid under the top flap, she left them lay and plodded back to bed.
She had slept badly and when she had fallen asleep she'd dreamed of being sent on errands to look for mysterious objects that she could never find. And now, at 6:00 am, she was reduced to crawling on her hands and knees over her floor and shoving her hand into the recesses of her toilet. Could it possibly get much better than this? God…she hoped not or she'd be moving into Gateways Hospital. She could tell them all about vampires roaming at night and maybe her roommate could expound on the werewolf population within the city.
"Hmmmph," she huffed. She'd laugh if she didn't find it so disturbing.
"Oh Josh…" she sobbed and then bit her lip to keep from crying. How could she have been so careless to have lost his ring?
She stood and looked at herself in the mirror, sleepless eyes staring back at her in disapproval.
"Then you tell me where it is!" she barked at her reflection.
When no answer was forthcoming she picked up the soap to wash her hands and stared down into the open drain of the sink. It yawned back, exposing a wide, black hole large enough to drop a quarter into and certainly large enough to swallow Josh's ring.
Hope blossomed in her heart as she quickly opened the doors below the sink and looked at the plumbing where there was a twist of plastic pipe running from the bottom of the sink and into the wall at the back of the cabinet. She tapped on the bend forming the trap and was rewarded with a solid, muted sound from within it. If the ring had fallen into the sink it would surely have lodged in this pipe. Now, all she had to do was get it apart.
Not having anything remotely resembling a pipe wrench she tested the upper slip-nut with her fingers and felt it give ever so slightly. She could do this! Using the hand towel to help her grip she twisted the ring of plastic again, applying more pressure than before and succeeded in completely releasing the P-trap from its bottom section of straight pipe. Water seeped over the top of the open pipe and wicked into the hand towel she was using.
Highly encouraged by her success so far, she went to work on the nut at the back. It proved to be a much tighter fit and refused to budge, so she twisted the P-trap instead of trying to release the slip-nut.
The sound of the plastic nut snapping in half preceded the gush of water from the loose plumbing she held in her hand by only a split second. A murky slime adhered to a web of hair that the pipe partially vomited out onto her hands.
With a guttural cry of revulsion she dropped both the towel and pipe and involuntarily shook her hands to rid them of the muck. The resulting spatter flew through the air to land on the walls of the room and across her T-shirt. The small plastic tube had held a deceptively large volume of liquid and sludge and after viewing the contents she understood why her sink had been draining slowly over the last few weeks.
She reached for the bath towel behind her and tried to wipe off as much of the waste from her hands and body as she could. The pipe lay across the bottom of the cabinet as through it were a small animal that had recently disgorged its entrails. Voicing a bleat of disgust she used the towel to pick up the curved tube and shake it to dislodge the ring she hoprd was hiding in the goo. She didn't hear or see anything that could be the ring but to be sure she leaned over the side of the tub next to her and rinsed out the sink trap using the tub spigot. It ran clean and her hope dissolved as quickly as the water disappeared down the drain.
She dropped back to the floor, sat with her back against the wall and tossed the ruined piece of plumbing back under the sink. A wail of frustration erupted from her and tears coursed down her face at her loss. If Josh were there he'd sit on the floor next to her, put his arm around her and tell her not to weep over losing a ring. She'd bury her face in his shoulder and allow him to stroke her head in a futile effort to comfort her.
However, what she wanted, and needed, was a cool strong hand extended down to lift her from the floor and her emotional low. A hand that would draw her up to stand on her own and face the man who would share his strength with her. A man who would tell her that, though her losses were great they could be withstood. And he would be there to help her.
The thought of Mick braced her and she stood, with the help of his mental image still embedded in her mind. She had two hours to get to work and she both dreaded and looked forward to it.
She wouldn't be staying at BuzzWire much longer. She'd been coming to the conclusion for several weeks that the type of reporting she had been doing was not enough for her. She liked the involvement of working on a case instead of reporting a story. The few serious cases she'd helped on with Josh and Mick made the fluff and sleaze stories BuzzWire sent her on even trashier.
The daunting tasks of changing jobs and moving out of her apartment were too large to give serious consideration at the moment. And since it didn't appear she was going to find the ring she decided to concentrate on getting through the hours of her work shift somehow. That, and calling maintenance to fix the mess she'd made of her bathroom sink.
MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT MOONLIGHT
Fresh from the shower, Mick laid his head down on the pillow and stretched out luxuriously across the bed. Initially, after he had absorbed the compound, he'd been interested in the warmth that life had to offer. Now, he was finding its counterpart was equally as enjoyable. The bed linens were cool and comfortable and his eyes drifted closed even though his mind was ruminating over the day's events.
If the day could have been any more perfect he certainly didn't know how. The beach they'd picked was less frequented by families and tourists who tended to stay nearer to the boardwalks and shops. That had allowed the two of them a bit more privacy. They mostly talked and laughed as they walked the sandy beach and played in the water but there had been a few clandestine kisses and possessive hand-holding during the day and the heat his body had generated during numerous applications of sunscreen had nothing to do with the sun.
The thought of how slick her skin felt with the lotion sliding between his fingers and her back brought a satisfied smile to his face. But the best part had been when she had massaged it into his back and shoulders. There had been nothing sexual about it but it had to be one of the most sensual things he experienced in years. The touch of another was truly a human need as much as air and food and he had deprived himself of this simple human interaction for decades out of …what? Fear? Self-punishment perhaps? Beth's hands on his back and shoulders pushed his sensuality to its limits more than he could have imagined. Her familiar touch filled the empty well in the center of his being and bathed the shriveled husk that had served as his soul for so long. He felt himself being replenished as blood and cold had never been able to do. He was connected again and could hardly contain his desire for more.
On a more secluded beach he would have removed the bits of fabric that served to protect her modesty on a public beach, laid her down in the surf and made love to her as the waves washed over them. One corner of his mouth lifted in a smile as he sleepily imagined Beth lying on top of him as the sea ate the sandy beach away from beneath them.
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr had been kissing at the waters edge on the shores of the big island a little over a year after he'd kissed Coraline for the first time as his lawfully wedded wife. That year had been a living hell for him, caught between what he had become and what he had so recently left behind. When he was able to steal away from her he'd often slip into a movie house and live life vicariously through the characters on the big screen.
From Here to Eternity had been a favorite of his and he'd watched it in every theater in town for as long as it had played. He'd found that when his mind was occupied with the storyline of the movie he couldn't feel his bride worming around in his thoughts. It provided a brief respite from the servitude she demanded and he was somehow unable to deny her. But he'd always come away with that kissing scene from the beach stowed away in a corner of his mind. It was the beginning of his ability to shield his mind from Coraline and gave him as much satisfaction as it gave her cause for unease.
The air conditioning came on in the apartment and blew its chilly air throughout the room. Rousing briefly he slid under the top linens and settled in on his side with a sigh of satisfaction. Cool air played in swirls around him and he pulled the comforter up over his shoulders, his breath warming the small pocket of air between his face and pillow. It was amazing how his body could enjoy such opposite sensations. There were so many different levels of comfort to relish as a human.
His breathing settled into a deeper rhythm as he reached across the cool empty sheet of the bed for the warm body that had lain next to him the night before. His fingers spread and kneaded as he pulled the dream to his chest and snuffled in contentment. His mind released the string of thoughts regarding his ex-wife. They were inconsequential memories of a past that no longer held him in its tight-fisted grip and they floated away through the fog of approaching sleep.
A/N: That finishes the Jason Mraz song 'Make It Mine'. I just thought it epitomized how Mick was feeling and had to use it.
In writing about Mick and Beth on the beach I kept seeing that classic kissing scene from the movie 'From Here to Eternity'. (Pardon me but those are a few excess years showing there…please don't stare!). The movie would have been made during the right time frame and was a huge hit. I knew Mick would have been thinking about it even if Beth had never seen it.
So…it would seem that everyone has had a pretty miserable nights sleep except Mick! It was time to cut him a break didn't you think? Maybe he's finally burying the past. Too bad there seem to be so many people around wanting to dig it back up!
I know I don't deserve it because I've been so bad at updating but I could really use the encouragement of a review or two. Punish me if you must…but do it by pressing that review button. We'll both feel so much better when it's over!