St. Clair Ch. 04: The Angel

"I fucking hate dealing with tweakers." He'd damn near had his head blown off by one of the twitchy meth dealers down in Louisiana just a few weeks ago. No particular reason for it that they'd ever figured out. Of course they couldn't ask the dealer or his girlfriend since Levi had immediately shot both of them.

Levi shrugged again. "Money's money."

"Meth money is pocket change."

"Well, we don't have very much pocket change right now."

Ramon grunted and opened another beer. Levi was starting to get an attitude, and Ramon was going to have to deal with it sooner or later. But it'd have to wait until after they tried to find Cindy in Missouri.

###

Saint Clair, Missouri

###

TJ sniffed Courtney's hair. "Mmmm. Baby Magic."

"Let's see you check the other end that way." Tammi gave a wry smile then put another sweet potato into the produce bag and put the whole bag into the cart.

"Yeah... I don't think so."

"Chicken."

TJ hefted Courtney a bit. "She's already blown her diaper out this morning anyway." She smirked at Tammi, then tugged the diaper back a bit and peered in cautiously. "She's clean."

"Next one is yours anyway. The one this morning was horrible."

TJ ruffled Courtney's hair. "That was epic, wasn't it? Peas make it really special." Courtney responded to TJ's smile with her own toothless grin.

Tammi couldn't suppress a smile and she gently poked Courtney's tummy with one fingertip. "Mmmm 'Boop.' That why we had to come here to go shopping. Somebody used up another thing of diaper wipes."

"We should just order them by the case."

"But then she wouldn't get to come into town and see everybody." Tammi pushed the cart up to checkout counter. "Like our Miss Cindy here."

Cindy, in her usual high neck, long sleeve dress, wrinkled her nose at Courtney. "Are you here to pick up some smoked ribs for your Mommies? It's on special."

TJ spun Courtney's back to Tammi and tugged her shirt up. "We have baby back ribs!"

Tammi immediately nibbled along Courtney's side. "Nom nom nom." Courtney dissolved into squeals.

Cindy laughed along, then plopped a little pink calico teddy bear next to the register. "Miss Betty at the Baptist Church makes these little things, and I picked you one out at the church fair. He's been waiting on you."

Courtney promptly stuck the bear's arm in her mouth and began gnawing, quite content, as Cindy began to ring up the order.

TJ tugged her wallet out of the diaper bag and pulled out money to cover the groceries. "You going to be at the County Animal Shelter fund raiser next month?"

Cindy nodded while she filled bags. "I have to. Ted's donating cookies and orange drink from the store. He's even paying me to be there."

Tammi put a bag of carrots up on the counter. "We're bringing Courtney. I'm gonna have a display on wild animals, ticks, diseases and all that. TJ's on duty, but she'll probably be there most of the time." Tammi assumed a fake Southern Society accent. "It's the Social Event of the Season, so of course we'll have to be there."

Courtney fumbled with the little pink teddy bear for a second, then dropped it. Cindy reached out and snagged it right off the edge of the counter, just as it was about to fall to the floor. She looked up to say something, but, whatever it was, it died away in strangled silence.

TJ was staring fixedly at her hand. The sleeve had pulled back just a bit. Just enough to expose the intricate edge of the angel wing cuff tattoo that wrapped her wrist. Her expression held recognition, the thing Cindy feared most in all the world.

Cindy froze, mouth partly open, a sickening fear crawling along her spine like centipede. Tammi turned at the sudden silence, which seemed to be just enough. TJ looked up, but she looked as much through Cindy as at her. "Nice catch, Cindy."

Finishing up, Cindy felt like she was doused in ice water. The cheerful baby-toting "Mommy" was suddenly a mask, and Cindy sensed the one-eyed deputy was making a note of every movement, every word.

She nearly collapsed as they walked out the door.

###

TJ woodenly loaded Courtney into the car seat, silent except to give Courtney the expected tickle and tease that she got every time.

"What was that? What happened in there?" Tammi wasn't going to let this pass - she watched TJ all the time to make sure she didn't fall back into herself, into the silences she sometimes did."

TJ looked in the mirror and watched Courtney holding the little pink teddy bear. "We need to talk to Cindy. Tonight. I'm not sure what's going on, and I don't want to embarrass her, but I finally figured out why she always seemed familiar."

###

Cindy closed the door with the same sense of panic she did every time. But this time, she was sure it was real. They were coming.

Six latches. Six different latches. She snapped and twisted them as fast as she could, finally pulling the always-waiting chair over and jamming it under the doorknob.

She slumped gracelessly to the floor in an odd cross-legged sitting position facing the door.

Waiting.

It was almost an hour before the soft knock on the door sounded. She wanted to ignore it, but she was sure they wouldn't go away.

###

"'Funky Cold Medina.'"

Cindy nodded, almost expressionless. "Yeah. That was the song. Great for getting the crowd in a fun mood. Always get better tips when the crowd is in that kind of mood. And you can seriously slow-grind to it."

TJ looked toward Tammi, shifting Courtney to her other hip. "It's her. Remember when I told you about my 'Heartbreak Tour' in Vegas?"

Tammi knew very well what was going on - TJ had talked it over with her for most of the previous hour. "When Katie left you?"

"Yeah... Cindy was one of the dancers." She paused, looking for words.

Tammi arched an eyebrow. "Is she the one that..."

"No! That was a showgirl named Candi."

"With an 'I' with a heart over it. I remember." Tammi looked over at Cindy. "Did you give her a lap dance?"

"Yes. A crowd of them came in together and a really wild Cuban girl dropped about two grand on lap dances for her. It was a pretty crazy evening, even by Vegas standards."

Tammi's smile widened to a grin. "Did she behave?"

"As far as I know. She did with me, anyway."

"She never does with me. Totally ignores the no-hands rule." Tammi gave TJ a wry look.

Cindy gave a weak smile. "Yeah. But I saw the video of that karaoke night at Bert's. I'm pretty sure you broke the rules first."

"Is there anyone on this planet that hasn't seen that damn video?" Tammi didn't sound all that upset about it though.

"I think I read somewhere that there are a hundred or so tribes around the world that have never made contact." TJ knew Tammi wasn't really all that upset over the video. That had been Tammi's way of publicly claiming TJ and making sure she knew it, along with everyone else in town. She'd also inadvertently told well over a million other people, judging by the YouTube numbers.

"See what I put up with?" Tammi looked at Cindy with undisguised amusement.

TJ sighed and changed the subject. "We're not going to say anything to anyone. But I saw your face when you knew I'd seen the tattoo. And..." She turned and gestured to the row of locks down the door. "... that's not an 'I turned over a new leaf' thing. Unless the new leaf is Fort Knox."

Cindy looked down at the floor. "I'm dodging my ex."

Before she could continue, Tammi grabbed her hand. "I know how that is. Really. Andy was beatin' on me regular." She glanced back at TJ with a mix of love, gratitude, and expectation. "We'll help you out."

"You'll need to press charges Cindy, that's the only way to stop it. It's a risk; it'll piss him off, but we'll do everything we can." TJ's voice was all grim deputy.

Cindy rubbed the side of her nose. "I'm not sure what you can do. The FBI is already hunting him for kidnapping and murder. He's a hitman."

TJ glanced back the stack of locks on the door. "Shit."

Tammi turned. "TJ, Courtney's gonna start picking up on..." Her voice trailed off as Cindy's words sunk in. "Shit."

TJ reached over and pulled a chair out from Cindy's kitchen counter. "You probably need to go ahead and explain that."

###

Jefferson City, Missouri

###

"Senator Robert Cooper?"

"Yes?" State Senator Cooper looked over the two "constituents" he'd agreed to meet and was very glad he'd sent his secretary home early. She normally stayed a little late to help him with "personal issues," but the note had been pretty specific. It had also used names, including both his uncle and his father's names, rather liberally. A call to his uncle's former chief of staff had confirmed that he needed to accept the meeting.

The tattoo covered guy smiled, a carefully calculated smile that Cooper recognized as a mirror to his own. "We have a mutually beneficial agreement to propose. Something along the lines of the agreement your uncle had with Mr. Manafort."

The sense of foreboding that Cooper had started with plummeted into a stomach flipping nosedive at the mention of the old racketeer. "You appear to be under some misapprehension. My uncle never had any kind agreement with any 'Manafort.'"

The creepy balding man smiled; it was a much less refined, much more predatory smile, but he stayed silent and let the tattooed man continue. "It seems Mr. Manafort was much less trusting than you'd think. An acquaintance provided us with some recorded discussions. They're old, but they're clear enough."

Within a half hour of verbal sparring, Cooper knew he couldn't really ignore the recordings. They were very clear; his uncle admitted to using Cooper's father, a BATF agent, as an enforcer to ensure he controlled the flow of illegal moonshine across most of southern Missouri down into Arkansas.

"This is all very interesting, but it's very nearly ancient history. I'd probably weather it just fine. Given the history here with Frank and Jesse James, the Moran gang, I'd say the citizens of Missouri have a fondness for those who skirt the law."

Ramon kept his smile at the friendly end of the scale. "But the Internal Revenue Service probably doesn't."

The threat to the Cooper family fortune was suddenly very clear. "So what is it you want?"

Ramon tossed an envelope onto the desk. "Her. She's in some kind of witness protection thing here."

"WITSEC is a federal program, not a State program. I don't have access to that. Nobody does." Cooper slid a set of photos out of the envelope.

"It's not WITSEC, according to what we heard, it's some kind of agreement between the FBI and your Victim Protection Office."

Cooper vaguely remembered a mention of something that sounded similar in a State Law Enforcement Committee synopsis. "I'll see what I can do."

###

Two days later, Senator Cooper smiled incredulously up at a picture of his father. "Figure the fucking odds on that. Of all the goddamn places for her to be." It had to be a sign, even to a man who didn't believe in any of that, it had to be a sign. Kill two birds with one stone. He chuckled at that.

It was really best to be sure though. He reached over and hit the intercom to his secretary. "Kerrie? I need you to find me an event. It's out of District, so some kind of bleeding heart thing, link it to some constituent request..." As he explained where and when, he pondered Kerrie's rather short dress this morning. Maybe an afternoon 'private conference' was in order as well.

###

St. Clair, Missouri

###

Tammi watched TJ. Who was watching Marina. Who was watching... nothing. Nothing that Tammi could see, anyway. TJ must have felt her stare, because she slowly turned to look at Tammi. She slowly got up and walked over to Tammi. "Do you think she's getting better?"

"I tuned your old radio to her broadcast frequency. When she got in range, I could hear the music she plays... and I don't know, but I think it got less dark as she got closer."

"Less dark?"

"Less Black Sabbath, more Van Halen."

"I guess that's hopeful."

Tammi glanced at the corn chowder. "I think that's done."

TJ reached over and gave it a stir. "Yeah, that looks right. What did she play when she pulled up?"

"Motley Crue. 'Home Sweet Home.'"

"That's what she played when we got back to the FOB." TJ spared a quick look over at Marina, still sitting at the table, still staring into space. "But it's also what she played after memorial services when we lost Soldiers."

"You talk to her about her mom?"

"I tried, but I didn't get much of a response. I'll call her mom and let her know she's still doing okay." TJ scooped the soup into bowls while Tammi pulled out some rolls. "I'm still not sure how to deal with her and Cindy."

"They probably won't ever meet. Marina always stays here anyway. We can tell Cindy just in case, but..." Tammi shrugged.

"I don't think Marina would care."

"Probably not."

###

Saint Clair Animal Shelter Charity Fund Raiser

###

"So you can see that the possums may be ugly, but they serve as something of a safety reservoir against rabies and consume huge numbers of ticks." Tammi gave a polite but distant smile to the tall well-groomed man in the expensive suit standing next to her.

Robert Cooper looked down at the pamphlets and brochures on the folding table. The curvaceous blonde was exactly the type of distraction he'd have welcomed at any time. At a petty fund raiser for some lost cats and dogs, she was practically a gift from heaven. She even smelled good, a bit like coconut. He gave her his best smile in return. "I'm very proud of the work you've been doing here." He gently touched her arm.

Tammi's smile cooled a half degree, and she stepped away. "Thank you, Senator. Doc, over there, has free rabies vaccine clinics every two years and helps us with injured wild animals all the time, it's the least we can do."

She could hardly have missed his interest in her. Over the course of a 45-minute visit, he'd returned to her table three times to ask inane questions that a fourth grader could answer. Still, two television reporters and a Post-Dispatch newspaper reporter had shown up as well, which meant that there was a chance for more donations for the shelter. Doc ran it in addition to his clinic, and Tammi felt like she owed him some help. Angie had been his assistant before they'd locked her up. She may have been a cannibal serial killer, but she'd been a great veterinary assistant and really good with animals.

He smiled at her, charming and gracious, then pulled a checkbook out with a bit of a flourish. "Well, I'll certainly do my part for this." He pulled an ornate gold tipped fountain pen out of his pocket. "A thousand dollars should be some help."

He held the pen up. "A gift from my uncle. It's a Montegrappa Rigoletto Fountain Pen, from the Inauguration. They're about four thousand dollars apiece. I even buy special cerulean ink for it. The same color as your eyes." He gave a slight, very practiced, raise of an eyebrow.

"That's a very nice family heirloom." Tammi bit her tongue at the bald attempt to impress her.

While he finished writing the check, she watched across the room. TJ had one of the shelter dogs out and was explaining it in comic detail to an entranced group of kids. Her scars, eye patch, and mechanical leg might have scared some kids, but Angie's long running joke about TJ being a space pirate in hiding had made her more fascinating than frightening. With Courtney sleeping soundly in a foldable playpen nearby, TJ had taken over Angie's usual job of explaining animals to kids. Or rather, having them explain it to her.

"Okay, so this is the wag-a-lator, right?"

"Nooooo! It's his tail!"

TJ looked doubtfully at the assembled giggling kids. "Are you sure? It wags. See?"

"It's a tail!" The mass of children giggled their way through TJ's comical attempts to explain the happy little dog's "chomp-a-lator" and "sniffiler." As TJ finished, Cindy came over and handed out cookies and drinks to the assembled kids.

The Senator somehow managed to move over next to Tammi again. "Who contributed the cookies?"

"Ted and Nancy own the grocery store, they gave the cookies, and the drinks."

"That's Nancy?"He strained, but couldn't quite see the face of the woman in the high-collared dress.

"No, that's Cindy, she's a cashier at the store, Ted and Nancy are over there bringing the cake in." Tammi pointed at the open door.

"Hmmm. Well, at least the children seem to be having fun." He moved a little closer.

Tammi stiffened. "Senator, that's the fourth time your hand has 'accidentally' brushed my ass. My butt may be a little big, but there's enough room for that not to happen again."

"I assure you it was entirely accidental."

"Accident or not, if you want to keep your hand attached to you, keep it off my ass." She caught his eye and gestured towards TJ. "TJ and I are a couple. I'm not interested."

He waved his hand dismissively. "You just need a real..."

"Don't you finish that sentence unless you want me to give the reporters a real show." Tammi gave him an unsubtle glare and stalked to the other side of the table.

Cooper watched her walk off, admiring the view, but more than a little irritated. "What a waste." Recognizing a lost cause, he reminded himself of the real reason for the trip. He began to drift over toward the dark-haired woman serving out cookies, but stopped when he saw the scarred deputy eyeing him laconically. There was no question she'd seen his whole interaction with the difficult blonde.

"Here to protect your girl from me?"

TJ looked him over slowly. "My 'girl' took down an honest-to-God serial killer, using only a walkie talkie. I'm just watching to make sure she doesn't kill you in front of everyone. Senator."

Cooper blinked, suddenly connecting the town to the lurid newspaper articles on the "cannibal killer" that had so fascinated him. Before he responded, he noticed a reporter approaching. "Well, deputy, it has been very nice talking with you, some time we'll have to sit down and talk over that case. It's not often serial killers get tracked down by local law enforcement."

Before she could respond, he walked to where the cake had been set up and made the necessary meaningless complimentary remarks.

The woman in the high collared dress finally turned and the Senator struggled to keep a straight face. "Figure the fucking odds."

###

TJ pushed the papers over to Shannon. "They're going to operate on Angie, remove the tumor."

The Sheriff studied the papers carefully. "This secure wing still isn't finished? Can't they just do this down at Chillicothe?"

"No. They don't have the right equipment for the operation. They're going to put a punch code lock and an armed guard on the room. The room is in a wing that is being renovated, so she'll be the only one there. She preps in the room, get operated on in the room and recovers in the room, then it's back to Chillicothe. Four guards on her every time she gets moved."

"Sounds expensive."

"Medical research money."

"Do they understand how dangerous she is?"

"I'm not even sure we do. But Ray sent up that memo up to the facility reminding them. We added in the part about multiple guards and full-time camera monitoring."

"... and?"

"And they said their own guards expressed similar concerns, but that they are 'confident in their assessment and added security measures.'"