Love, Fitz: Fracktown Gumshoe, #3

Chapter 1

F itz, honey, you awake ?

Her voice slipped through the haze of drunken sleep. Gracie. My wonderful Gracie. My precious Gracie. I felt her soft arm wrap around my naked chest. Her body, soft and just as naked as mine, spooned against my back, her long athletic leg wrapped across mine. At the edge of my Jack-induced fog, I reached back and ran my hand down that familiar thigh and soft supple hip.

Light began to filter through the windows and my brain, slowly washing the stupor away. I ran my hand along that leg again and a woman softly purred in response.

The horror of the last year crept back as the Jack began to pound in my skull.

I buried my face in my pillow and groaned, remembering the lump Gracie found in the shower, the surgery that took both breasts and the god-awful treatment that took not just her glorious, long, dark hair but the light from her eyes. Then, the second blow that it had spread to her lungs, her liver and finally her brain. I shaved my head at the same time when, as more and more brown locks came out in the sink, she decided to shave hers. I cried with her when it took too much effort to play her cello. Finally came the night I slipped into the hospital bed and held her tightly, stroking the brightly patterned turban covering her naked head and sobbing as my Gracie breathed her last.

When I got home, her cello was leaning against the chair she'd always practiced in, the bow laying on the soft yellow chair cushion, bathed in the soft light of sunrise, as if to tell me my darling girl didn't hurt any more. We buried her in the Fitzhugh family plot, next to my dad, then I closed the door to that room forever.

Then who the fuck was beside me?

I ran my hand along the leg again. It wasn't long. It wasn't muscular. The leg that wrapped around mine was soft, and plump and short.

You OK, Fitz? Her lips moved against my back and she hugged me tight.

Gracie would never have called me Fitz. Gracie would have called me by my given name, Niccolo, sometimes shortened to Nicco.

The woman made a well-satisfied sound and rolled away from me. I tried to turn my head discreetly to see with whom I'd apparently shared more than my bed.

Shit.

It was Alicia Linnerman, the prosecuting attorney. She slipped into a pair of pink lacy panties, fastened on a blue bra and leaned over to kiss me.

Morning, sexy.

Oh Jesus. What have I done?

MY CLIENT, A WOMAN, was silent a full thirty seconds, the news slipping into her drug-fried brain like water dripping through a crack in the ceiling.

What do you mean, he changed his plea? You told me you weren’t going to offer him a plea deal.

Sitting cross-legged on the dirty hotel room bed, surrounded by empty Chinese take-out containers, Sarah Hunter Pelfrey’s eyes were still dull, nearly a year after she’d completed detox. Her tone was flat, like she didn’t give a shit—and maybe she really didn’t.

Her blonde hair was like her face and her eyes: dull, lifeless and in need of either a good cut, a good shampoo or both. The scabs on her face had healed, but remained little pink reminders of her addiction. Someone had been kind enough to fix what was left of her upper teeth and restore at least part of her seldom-flashed smile. Her yoga pants hung from her bony hips; I don’t know if her porn star-sized breasts were real or not, but they made her Guns N’ Roses T-shirt fit well.

Jesus, didn’t you hear what she told you? I couldn’t help my exasperation.

Sarah was in the hotel room because, nearly eighteen months ago, she saw drug dealer Pablo Hernandez place his .357 against the temple of a young man and pull the trigger. The victim, one Matthew Arthur Peccarillo, had been stupid enough to try to short Pablo out of nearly two thousand dollars of crystal meth.

Hernandez went on the run and, when she tired of police questions about his whereabouts, Sarah went into rehab, binge eating and fighting the depression of withdrawal as the dopamine receptors in her brain tried to live without crack.

It’s called anhedonia, Fitz, Alicia hissed at me. It’s the inability for former meth addicts to feel any intense emotion. It can last for a long, long time, even after rehab. She’s probably terrified.

If she’s smart, she would be, I whispered. But the meth probably fried anything left of her common sense.

Fitz!

As the only private dick in town, I’d been hired to sit outside Sarah’s hotel room in suburban Cleveland for three days, making sure no one came through the door to prevent her from testifying.

My assistant, Mary Margaret Cleary, stayed inside, calling out for food and holding Sarah’s hands when terror did manage to break through, while we waited for the call from the courts to bring her to Fawcettville to testify. Sarah chain-smoked cigarettes and devoured Kung Pao shrimp while Mary Margaret flossed food particles from between her orthodonture and cast long, scared glances at her roommate.

I didn’t mind catching naps in my car in the hotel parking lot or in the armchair in the hotel room—it kept me away from our Tudor house in University Heights and the memories of Gracie.

When Hernandez was captured trying to enter into Mexico, a newly sober Sarah walked into Fawcettville Police Chief Dave Baker’s office and spilled her guts. All she asked for was protection until she could testify and relocation into witness protection after the trial. Alicia Linnerman agreed and, a week before the trial, she hired my firm, Fitzhugh Investigations, to make sure Sarah made it in one piece to testify.

We didn’t offer him a plea deal. Federal law prohibits plea deals in drug-related murders, Alicia said, leaning on the combination microwave and fridge. His lawyer came to me this morning and said Pablo wanted to change his plea to guilty, take responsibility for the whole thing. You don’t have to testify.

What changed his mind? Again, her tone was flat.

I don’t know if we’ll ever know that and I’m not going to make any guesses. Sentencing won’t be for another month—he’ll have to make a statement then. More than likely he will get life without parole, Alicia said. I’ve made arrangements for you to enter witness protection tonight, though. Fitz and Mary Margaret can take you back to your apartment where you can gather some personal items. They will stay with you until the feds get there at six.

Sarah unfolded her bony legs from beneath her and stood up. If Pablo’s going to jail, I don’t need to go into witness protection. Nobody’s coming after me. I’m going home.

You sure, Sarah? Mary Margaret asked. A couple years into her employment with me, Mary Margaret still had a wide-eyed naive look despite the continuous exposure to the dark side of humanity that waltzed in my office on a daily basis.

It wasn’t a surprise—she’d grown up the homely only child of an overly protective, overly Catholic widow. Mary Margaret went to a Catholic women’s college and graduated with a degree in English literature—not criminal justice, not law, not anything that made my life easier. English fucking literature.

Back when I was lucky enough to get a second chance at my marriage, Gracie hired Mary Margaret as my assistant, a very homely, naive, and badly dressed assistant. As far as appearances went, her taste was improving – Mary Margaret recently decided to spend the last raise I’d given her on getting her crooked teeth straightened.

I hooked my thumbs in my belt. Hate to say it, but Mary Margaret is right. You might still want to consider the program just long enough to get set up somewhere else.

No. I’ll be fine. Get the hell out of here, Fitz. I need a shower. Sarah dropped her lit cigarette into a cup of cold Starbucks; Mary Margaret blanched as it hissed. I stepped back outside and leaned against the wall as Sarah cleaned up and Alicia continued trying to talk her into entering witness protection.

In the end, she was unsuccessful. Half an hour later, Sarah was in the back seat of my black Excursion with her suitcase, Mary Margaret belted in beside her. I drove her home to her apartment in the Flats neighborhood of Fawcettville. Alicia, in her yellow Volkswagen Beetle, followed behind, cursing her idiot former witness and the stupid decision she made through my cell phone.

Uh huh. Yes. I agree. I know. I understand, was just about all I could say in response.

We all walked her to the door of her second story walk-up.

You sure about this? Alicia, hiding behind a mask of professionalism, asked again. I haven’t called off the feds. They’ll still be here by six, unless you say the word. It’s like I told you—a whole new identity, a new location, a chance to start over.

Yeah. I know. I’m not interested. Sarah sucked deep on her cigarette as she shoved the key into her door. I stepped in front of her before she could enter and pulled my Glock from my shoulder holster inside my hooded sweatshirt.

Just to make sure, let me make sure no one is waiting for you. It didn’t take long: the place was clear—and a dump.

Happy? Sarah’s suitcase hit the floor with a loud thunk. Now get the fuck out of here.

I DROPPED MARY MARGARET off back at her mother’s. Alicia met me at the La Dolce Vita bar.

La Dolce Vita was one of the seedy waterholes in the New Tivoli neighborhood where I’d grown up with my folks, Fawcettville Police Sergeant Aidan Fitzhugh and Maria Gallione Fitzhugh, my four brothers and two sisters, the only mick family in a sea of wops.

We all called each other those politically incorrect names back then—I was ‘Nick the Mick’ all through high school, until puberty hit and I was finally able to beat the shit out of somebody instead of the other way around. From then on, I was just Fitz.

We all still live in this Rust Belt town—it’s our home. Why would we go anywhere else? So it made sense to celebrate an easy judicial victory at La Dolce Vita.

This looks like the kind of place you’d hang out in, Alicia said when we stepped from our cars into the gravel parking lot.

My dad used to enjoy a beer or two here after work. I had my first beer here, too, back when eighteen-year-olds could drink that piss-awful 3.2-percent beer in Ohio, I answered, holding open the wooden door, with its single circular window, for her. I think I was fifteen. I stole my brother AJ’s driver’s license to do it. Dad came here after his shift was over and caught me—beat my ass but good in the alley out back. Didn’t set foot in the place again until after my first shift with the FPD.

Such an auspicious beginning for one of Fawcettville’s finest, she laughed, her cornflower blue eyes for once not looking at me like I was destined to be another notch on her bedpost. I liked Alicia Linnerman well enough, but she had a thing for bad boys—and me in particular. It was always a kind of dance between us. I’d let her come close and flirt just enough with her to make sure she’d hire me when the county needed a freelance investigator. If she got too close, I made sure she knew how happy I was married to Gracie. It usually cooled her off. Since Gracie’s death, she’d toned it down a lot—or I was too off balance to notice anything.

The evening started politely enough. Alicia had white wine and I had a beer as we shared a plate of antipasto, then a pizza. After a bit, some old friends from the police force, where I’d spent twenty years, came in after their shift. We shared the news about Hernandez’ guilty plea—and they began buying shots of Jack Daniels, no doubt grateful that we had saved thousands of taxpayer dollars and pulled yet another scumbag off the street.

Then I bought a couple rounds, then Alicia bought a couple rounds, then it all got fuzzy and here I was, the next morning, listening to Alicia brush her teeth in my bathroom.

I laid the picture of Gracie face down on the nightstand.

I’m sorry, Gracie. Jesus God, I’m so sorry. I whispered.

Even in death, I couldn’t stay faithful to her.

Chapter 2

Two days later I was still avoiding Alicia's phone calls.

Hi, Fitz, it's me. Just checking in... The voice that once sounded so sultry on the phone now shot fear up and down my spine.

Hey, Fitz. It's me again. Must have missed your call. Want to get together for dinner?

Alright, Fitz, I get the idea. I thought you’d at least be man enough to call me back, but I guess not.

The tone wasn’t sultry—it was angry. I deleted the last voicemail and shoved my smartphone back in my pocket as I drove.

I was on my way to a new case: Chase Hawksworth, owner of Full Bore Drilling hadn't seen his daughter in a week.

Hawksworth was a relative newcomer in Fawcettville—and whether he was welcome was a subject of some debate. I knew from Mary Margaret, who ran a public records check on him prior to my appointment, that he was facing at least three lawsuits in Common Pleas Court.

Two were from landowners on either side of the fracking field where I was meeting him. They accused Hawksworth and Full Bore Drilling of poisoning their wells. When the suit was filed, I remembered TV news reports showing these folks opening their faucets and lighting the flowing water on fire to demonstrate how natural gas had seeped into their wells and ruined their lives. One couple was interviewed standing beside a pallet of bottled water stacked in their garage.

The third lawsuit was the oldest, filed by a group of local tree huggers that called themselves Save Our Undeveloped Land or SOUL. When Full Bore Drilling arrived in town, SOUL filed an injunction to get Full Bore Drilling to stop until, as the case said, the definitive effects of hydraulic fracturing on the environment can be fully explored. Citing current Ohio law and the research SOUL hotly disputed, Hawksworth had his lawyers give the group the finger —at least legally—and started building platforms in the northwest part of the county.

Folks who had been unemployed for a long, long time—and that was most of Fawcettville—welcomed Chase Hawksworth and his fracking company like the second coming of Christ. Full Bore Drilling, with its logo of a razorback hog in a hard-hat running toward a derrick, brought the most important thing to this eastern Ohio town—something it hadn’t seen since the steel mills and the blast furnaces closed down.

Full Bore Drilling brought jobs.

Fracking itself brought a kind of gold-rush mentality that every farmer was going to make a million by letting this dirty search for energy occur on their land.

Fracking—hydraulic fracturing, technically—meant drilling a well and shoving chemically loaded water at high pressures through the shale beneath the surface. That water released the oil and natural gas held within the rock, pumping it back to the surface. Wells were drilled down, sometimes a mile or more, then turned horizontally before what looked to me like a geological enema took place.

No wonder SOUL had filed suit.

Some farmers had made a shitload of cash, leasing lands for up to five thousand an acre to the fracking companies—the same lands that had garnered thirty bucks an acre at auctions. Others allowed more speculative companies to drill their lands and found themselves with farmland that could best be described as raped when nothing was found and the speculators pulled out.

I’d been a life-long resident of Fawcettville and knew how the town could rise or fall. It was rising now—there were jobs again. Money for the arts, which disappeared when the steel mills closed, was flowing again. Fracking companies, of which Full Bore was just one, underwrote symphony programs, where Gracie had once performed, endowed scholarships at the college where she taught music theory and cello, and provided grants to the local hospital where she died.

I thought about the folks next door to this site, the folks with the water that burned a blue flame and wondered how soon it would be before the gas and oil would be gone and these companies, like the steel mills before them, would be gone as well.

I pulled my Excursion into the dirt