UnderCover

PROLOGUE

Martha McGill had been dead for slightly over two hours before she realized she’d passed away. She was sitting on the ground behind her home on a late spring morning, near her beloved fish pond. Although she felt fine and solid enough, she noticed her right hand, resting against the lawn at the end of the arm supporting her shoulder and the tilting burden of her trunk, was not bending the blades of grass. As she was absently studying this curious phenomenon, the memory of her death came flooding back. Pain returned to her left arm in a rather distant way, a knife-edged ache that seared down the inside of her nearly paralyzed limb from just below the bicep to the inside of her elbow and on into the wrist and hand. The pain also flashed upward into her neck and jaw, bringing toothaches to her lower teeth, teeth that had been replaced by man-made products nearly four decades before.

Martha observed the recollection in an innocent bystander sort of way, unable to turn from the scene before her, but far too full of the memory of pain to participate in the process again. Next came the cramping in her upper chest and she felt herself fall to the grass with it, slightly stunned by the power of the malfunction. The roaring in her ears, the uselessness of her arm, the rigidity of her diaphragm, the ragged cacophony of her heartbeat as it was bone conducted to her middle and inner ears all revisited her with clarity. She knew she was reliving what had happened just a short time before. Martha sat, nearly frozen in position, waiting for the fear she knew had to come with her passing, but it did not. Confused by her lack of panic and slightly frightened by how calm she seemed, she prepared herself to rise.

She, as with almost all elderly people, was no stranger to death. Noble, her husband, had been gone for well over a decade. She’d been through the loss of her grandparents and parents. Her son, Macon, and his wife Cindy, had been killed in an auto accident while on vacation in Montana. Martha, who had volunteered to keep their son Paul while they went on their trip, had reared the boy as her own. Her older brother and sister were also gone, as was her spinster daughter, Verna, to cancer when she was only fifty-one. Martha had suffered the bereavement of abandonment, dealt with her own status as an orphan and a widow, and come through it all with an appreciation of inevitability that, in its way, was balm for the wounds of time. There was a peace about her some people said, and that was how Martha preferred to view eternity. A time of peace.

She still attended church when she could, a less than fanatical Baptist who found more pleasure in the association with the congregation than she did solace in the interpreted words of a one-time carpenter from Nazareth turned political activist and thorn in the establishment’s side. She was as much Christ’s savior as he was hers, and she knew it. That very attitude of shared responsibility also brought her peace that was noticed by those around her, and she was often admired for what others assumed to be the steadfastness of her faith. Martha found it a bit amusing and let them have their illusions, for without illusion faith of any kind is impossible.

As Martha prepared for the effort of rising, she found herself on her feet. Stunned by the ease of it all, she concentrated on keeping her balance and was further surprised by the lack of need for such concern. For the first time since she found herself sitting in the grass, she felt a tingle of fear. How could this be? She had gotten to her feet without getting to her feet. There had been no exertion. No careful levering of herself away from the earth. No precise positioning of her body. No vigilant attention to her hips and back. No pain in the straightening of her spine. No acclamation to the upright whatsoever. She was sitting and then she was standing, without even the fluidly and awkward grace of a child.

This was remarkable. As a test, she began to lay down in the yard again and was suddenly on her back, her cotton and rayon housedress immodestly above her knees, the toes of her sensible black shoes pointed skyward, her arms out flung from her sides. Not only had there been no effort in assuming the position, it was a position that her body had denied her for years. Here she was, at her age, splayed out in the back yard as if she were preparing to make an angel in the snow. Oh, my!

This was what people feared? This was what caused them to rush to both religion and judgment? This was the truth that was so simple as to be unbelievable and unacceptable? If this was death, and that binding and restrictive eighty-seven years from which she had just escaped had been life, the terms life and death needed radical revision. No wonder so few seemed to grasp the nature of it all. No wonder that dogma seemed to be such a human imperative. No wonder people were so prone to huddling in their little enclaves and sneering at the rest of those misguided fools who had it all wrong. Where was the distant beckoning light? The hordes of waiting virgins? The savior on the other side of the river? The nothingness in preparation for the second coming? The rapture? The agony of purgatory? The thousand burning Christmas trees into which sinners would be plunged? Where were the streets of gold behind pearly gates, administered to by Saint Peter and his massive book of admittance?

Martha McGill, feeling younger than youth in her old age, more alive in death than she had ever felt in life, lay on her back and giggled with the effortlessness of it all.

*****

CHAPTER ONE

David Allen Crockett poured a splash of cream in the mug of Blue Kona and stepped onto his porch in the twilight just before dawn. It was still early enough in the spring for the air to be chilly, and he cinched his oversized terry robe a bit tighter as he sipped his first coffee of the day. A mockingbird started up in the distance, as it had for the past few mornings, intoning a medley of other bird’s calls. Crockett had counted seventeen of them, avian impressions that came in the same order every day. He eased himself onto the porch swing, took another sip of coffee, and lit a Sherman MCD, one of ten or so he would smoke before the day was over.

Moving into the middle of nowhere, surrounded by woods and wildlife, had been the smartest thing he had ever done. His past few years had been rife with emotional and physical ups and downs: Rachael’s murder, the loss of his leg, his encounter with the Amazing Disappearing Woman, the rescue of the lad, Zeke, from the separatist enclave, Ruby’s abduction down on the Spring River in Arkansas, the threat to Carson Bailey, and Ruby’s subsequent death during the armed attack at Ivy’s home in Barrington Hills. That had left him with little more than the desire to put it all behind him and find some tranquility for a change. He’d stopped looking for happy endings by the time he was thirty, but some peace was wonderful. He sat, listening to the mockingbird and attempting to visualize how the bulldozed draw in front of his cabin would look when full of water.

Movement toward the distant dam caught his eye, and he smiled as Dundee, his Cattle Dog/Australian Shepard mix came sniffing her way in his direction, busily attending to her self-imposed duties as property inspector. In her wake was Nudge, Crockett’s immense tomcat, stepping slowly through the undergrowth, a slight limp from the arrow wound inflicted on him by the Boggs Brothers coloring his gait. Crockett gave a low whistle. Dundee froze, glanced toward the porch, grinned, and broke into a run, heedless of the soft and gooey terrain between her current location and her desired destination. Nudge ignored the entire display and continued his deliberate stroll, carefully avoiding anything that might soil his buff-colored coat or his coaster sized paws.

Carrying enough clay for a pottery class on each of her four limbs, Dundee, scattering mud in every direction, galloped up the steps, across the once clean deck, and, despite his protests, plopped her front feet onto Crockett’s lap as she strained to cover his face in dog spit.

Quit it! Dundee, I just got this robe out of the dryer. Get down!

The dog’s butt hit the floor, her bobbed-tail vibrating madly; and she looked at him, her entire body in motion from the violence of the wag.

You are a worthless animal and I despise you completely.

Dundee’s reply was quiet and intense.

Boof!

Oh yeah? Look at this porch. You’re grounded, young lady. No TV or internet for a week. And you can forget about going to the mall.

Boof!

And don’t argue. There’s military school, too, y’know.

Unable to restrain herself, the dog put a forepaw on his knee.

Oh, hell, Crockett said, taking the dog’s head in his hands and roughing her up. You win.

As the dog crouched to jump onto the swing, Crockett heard the sliding door open behind him. The dog barked again and disappeared under the porch swing on her way to the door. Satin Kelly’s voice cut through the still morning air.

Dammit, Dundee! I just got this robe outa the dryer.

Won’t help, Crockett said, not turning around. I told her the same thing. Didn’t do a bit of good.

Battling the excited dog, Satin worked her way around the swing and flopped beside Crockett as Nudge, daintily avoiding the globs of mud, attained the top of the steps and sat by the edge of the deck, regarding everyone with slitted eyes and owled ears. Dundee, the gathering of the entire pack achieved, lay down by the railing in front of the swing and began to chew on her paws to get the clay out from between her toes. Crockett, careful to avoid the mud spatters, patted Satin on her terry-covered thigh.

Mornin’ honey lamb, he said, his tone less than sincere.

Good coffee, Satin said, taking a sip from Crockett’s cup.

Want some of your own, sweetie-pie?

Naw. I’ll just have some of yours.

More coffee in the kitchen. Got a mug or two in there that would flatter your eyes.

This is fine, Satin said, taking another sip.

Sighing, Crockett lurched upright and limped inside. When he returned he was carrying a large dragon flagon he’d gotten years before at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival. A sickly yellowish green in color, the mug featured a three-dimensional, wart-covered dragon whose head thrust outward from the front of the vessel, peering at the world through bloodshot eyes. One curved and taloned paw made up the handle. Satin hated the thing.

I hate that thing, she said.

Want a sip?

Satin grunted and disappeared inside with his original cup. When she returned, she kissed him on the back of the neck and took a seat.

Coffee of your own?

Bite me, Satin said, and snuggled into his right side as the sun cast its first golden shafts through the trees from the direction of the unseen dam.

It was several minutes before either of them said a word. At length, Crockett spoke up.

I want an island, he said.

You want an island?

Yeah.

Aw, Satin said, that’s just a fantasy.

A small island.

If it’s small enough, you could get it covered in real Corinthian leather, Ricardo.

Why do you always step on my dreams?

Satin’s voice became thin and scratchy. Da plane, boss, she said. Da plane!

And, Crockett said, I want a boat.

A boat?

Yeah.

You could set a course for adventure, your mind on a new romance.

Crockett forged ahead. As with the island, he said, just a small one. One of those little bitty pond boats.

Satin batted her eyes. Captain Stubing, have I ever told you how much I love a man in uniform?

If there’s one thing worse than a smart ass, Crockett said, it’s a smart ass who’s stuck in the past.

Is Gopher up on the Lido deck?

I really hate it when you behave like this, Crockett said.

Satin nuzzled his ear. How ‘bout when I behave like this?

I don’t hate it as much.

I’d do almost anything for a man with his own boat and island.

No shit?

Nearly none.

Crockett tossed his dragon flagon over the railing and onto the ground in front of the porch, peered at Satin, and bumped his eyebrows.

Oh, hell, she said. I feel so cheap.

A little over an hour later, as Crockett whipped eggs for French toast, Satin, dressed in loafers, jeans, and a threadbare flannel shirt, walked into the kitchen and headed for the coffee pot. Crockett grinned at her.

Since you’re still here, he said, I assume you don’t work today.

Satin put her cup into the microwave. You think I’d be here if I had anything else to do?

Silly me.

Well, I would, Satin said, moving behind him and putting her arms around his waist. I’m down to just three days a week at the Café. Gives me more time to keep you on the straight and narrow.

You think I need to be looked after?

I think you need a keeper. You know, constant supervision so you don’t injure yourself or something.

Recalling our recent amorous encounter, Crockett said, if I hurt myself, it will probably be because of your efforts, not in spite of them.

Not my fault if you can’t keep up, old man.

Your compassion is underwhelming.

Smiling, Satin removed her cup from the microcave. As she formulated a reply, the distant strains of Yankee Doodle wafted in from the living room. That’s my cell, she said, and departed the area.

Crockett had the bread soaking and the skillet warming before she returned.

What’s up? he asked.

That was my kid. Satin still clutched her cell phone but didn’t seem to notice.

Your daughter?

The only kid I got.

Crockett raised an eyebrow and waited.

Satin’s eyes vacillated between anger and fear.

The asshole is threatening her again.

*****

After a time, Martha got to her feet and looked around the yard. The sight of her own body lying a short distance away made her flinch and close her eyes. Her fear of seeing what she really looked like, especially in death, made her stand that way for a moment before she marshaled the fortitude to actually look at herself.

She was smaller than she had believed herself to be, an actual little old lady. In her mind came Johnathan Winters’ wonderful character, Maudie Frickert, who rode a Harley, lived in a nursing home, and enjoyed listening to her fellow inmates digest their dinners. She found herself a little shocked by her cavalier attitude toward her own dead body, but she felt so much better than she had in so long that the freedom from what she had been far outweighed the loss of the husk that remained in the yard.

Her body lay on its left side, knees drawn up to nearly a fetal position, the head tucked down toward the chest. Her right hand still clutched at the left arm, just below the bicep, no doubt a reaction to the pain. Her face, however, appeared relaxed and at rest. Although Martha vividly remembered the heart attack, she could not recall her actual death. Looking at her calm face, she believed she must have had an inkling of what was to come that made her smile. Perhaps the promise of relief had aided in her passing.

She moved to the body and was attempting, unsuccessfully, to smooth the skirt down in a more modest manner when her neighbor of six or seven years, Mary McClugen, exited the back door of her home to place a sack of kitchen trash in the covered barrel that resided on her tiny patio. Mary froze in the middle of the chore and, dropping her bag to the cement, uttered a small cry and came running, literally vaulting the four-foot chain link fence that Martha’s late husband, Noble, had insisted they install. Mary slid to a stop on her knees beside the body, shouting Martha’s name. Martha answered her, standing as she was, less than three feet away, but Mary could not hear or see her. Mary shouted Martha’s name a few more times and even lightly slapped the body’s cheek, but to no avail. After a moment or two, the obviously stricken woman sank back on her haunches, straightened the body’s rumpled skirt, drew a cell phone from her pocket, and made the inevitable call.

Unnoticed, Martha watched as the paramedics came and went. Unseen, she maintained her vigil as the police waited on a representative of the Coroner’s Office to make the official pronouncement. Beyond the awareness of the living, she looked on when her body was removed for transport to the Blair Funeral Home. Glad it was finally gone, she had no desire to accompany herself to the final round of indignities that would be visited on what she once was. Instead, she followed Mary into the house as her friend gathered numbers from the list beside the kitchen wall phone, and then back outside while Mary made sure the place was locked up. Martha attempted to follow her home. However, when Mary went through the gate between their properties, she could not. It was not as if something outside was keeping her in; it was as if she were being restrained by some force that kept her from going out. As she approached the boundary, she could almost lean forward against the pull of some power that lay behind her; an ethereal tether that tied her to the yard she in which she had spent so much of her life. If she stopped struggling against it, the bond disappeared. If she attempted to overcome it, it balanced against her strength and would allow her no headway. Fascinated by the phenomenon, Martha walked the property line of her home, finding the same restriction wherever she went.

Nor could she enter her own house. It made no difference if the doors were locked. It was as beyond her to grasp a knob or latch as it was for her to leave footprints on the grass. Had she been alive, this new situation would have vexed her intolerably, but she was not and it did not. She accepted this vagary of her new reality with calm ease, returned to the backyard, and went to her beloved fishpond.

Martha had added the pond to her yard about three years after her husband’s death. It measured twelve by twenty feet and was slightly over five feet deep at the big end, three at the small. In it she had built barriers to protect her water lilies and bog plants and installed two-dozen, minnow sized, Japanese Koi. During the nearly ten years since their introduction, the fifteen fish that had survived the first two years had grown to massive size, a couple over thirty inches long. They knew her and she knew them. With the exception of very cold weather when the pond iced up, she spent time with them daily, lavishing on them the same care and concern she had displayed for other meaningful entities in her life. Over time, she had added a rock garden and waterfall. Her backyard pond design and the care Martha gave it had even led to it once appearing in the style section of the Kansas City Star.

Even though she was now dead, Martha held no fear for the fish. Her granddaughter-in-law, Cheryl, would receive the house. Cheryl and her two daughters, Sarah and Amanda, would be glad for the home. All three of them, especially little Mandy, loved the pond and enjoyed the fish almost as much as Martha did. The house, Martha’s modest estate, plus some additional income from a trust she had established in Cheryl’s name, would be very welcome. Since Martha’s grandson, Cheryl’s husband Paul, had vanished, things had not been easy. When Paul went into undercover work with the State Police, she’d had many reservations about his safety. The nearly two-year investigation into his disappearance had led to no conclusions or answers, and the case was still listed as open, but the simple truth was that there was no Paul and no explanation. Nearly everyone connected to the case believed him to be dead; but without proof, Cheryl was not entitled to any insurance or pension benefits.

Martha approached the pond and watched the fish swim toward her. Smiling as they clamored for food and attention, she felt sorry she could not enter the house and get some pellets to toss into the water. They would just have to wait for Cheryl and the girls if they wanted to eat.

Babies, babies, babies, she said. Begging from me won’t help. There’s nothing I can do. You’re too greedy, anyway. You’re not even grateful! After everything I’ve done for you, you still just want…

Martha’s head swam, and she sank to her backside on a stone at the water’s edge. For over an hour she had moved among paramedics and policemen, onlookers and do-gooders and rubberneckers, and not one of them noticed her, even when she waved her arms and shouted. But these fish, her beloved Koi, had come to her for food. They could see her.

My dearest God, the fish could see her.

*****

CHAPTER TWO

Crockett freshened Satin’s coffee as she sat in a kitchen chair and stared blankly into the middle distance. He gave her a few moments to gather herself before he asked the inevitable question.

Who’s threatening your daughter?

Satin gave a small start and looked at him as if he’d just appeared out of thin air.

Train, she said.

Train?

Satin nodded.

And Train would be…?

This immense black guy.

I see. And Train’s pissed off at your kid because she kicked his bicycle over at recess, right?

Satin stared at her coffee for a moment, then turned her eyes to Crockett.

What? she said, trying to focus.

Crockett smiled. I need a story here, he said. At this point in time you are not an overly effective communicator. If I’m not digging into your private life too far, talk to me.

Satin eyes were full. You are my private life, Crockett.

Crockett smiled. Relate, he said.

Satin took a hit of her coffee and collected herself.

Danni and I are not close, she said.

Danni?

Danielle. Danielle Connelly. She kept my husband’s last name. I went back to my maiden name.

I believe you once mentioned you were a grandmother?

Satin nodded.

What was Danielle’s married name?

Satin shook her head. Danni was never married. She had Lucy when she was eighteen.

That’s young.

No shit. Same age I was when I had Danni. She ran off when she was seventeen. I didn’t hear from her for over a year, then she just showed up one day with a baby and expected me to give her a place to live, food to eat, and babysit the kid anytime she wanted to go out and party. Now and then she’d be gone for a couple of days at a time then show back up high or drunk, sleep for twelve hours, and take off again. Meantime, I’m a mom again. Christ, Crockett, I paid for daycare for the baby so I could work and support everybody while Danni came and went without a care in the world.

That’s bullshit, Crockett said.

There’s a lot of bullshit in this story. Danni’s no dummy. She graduated high school when she was still sixteen. She’d skipped two grades.

Jesus, Crockett said. Why the hell does a kid that bright run off and blow it all?

She blamed me for a situation with my husband, I guess.

Her father?

No. I didn’t marry her father. When she was six, I married Lee. He started molesting her when she hit puberty. It came early for her. I didn’t know about it until she was nearly fifteen.

Oh, hell. You go to the cops?

No. I knew it would be his word against hers. I threw him out. Told him if he ever came near Danni or me again I’d kill him. I would have, too. She hates him. She’s never forgiven me for not knowing what was going on, I guess.

Crockett shook his head. And you haven’t forgiven you either, huh?

Almost. Guilt is a real a sonofabitch. Probably why I’ve put up with so much crap from her.

Probably.

I let her come and go and took care of her daughter for about three months before I got fed up. Told her she’d have to get her shit together or get out. No matter what she thought of me, I was not going to enable her to be an unfit mother.

How’d she take that?

Satin sipped her coffee and grimaced. As usual, I was the villain, of course, she said. But I was also a free ride. A week or so later she came home claiming she had a job as a waitress at some truck stop in Independence or Grain Valley or somewhere, working from eight at night to four in the morning.

Uh-huh, Crockett said. I assume that was a lie.

Oh, yeah. But, I didn’t want it to be. So, for the next few months, I worked all day, took care of the baby at night, and put up with a daughter who was running around until all hours of the morning, who never turned a lick to help keep the apartment up or contribute to the financial end of things, and laid around all day in a stupor doing very little to care for her child. Then one night as I’m putting Lucy to bed, the phone rings. I let it go while I finished with the baby. When I checked the message it was from some guy named Benny wondering why Danni wasn’t at work and complaining that there were customers waiting for her. He threatened that if she screwed up one more time, she was fired. The last thing he did was call her a dope-headed little cunt.

Satin went to the counter and freshened her coffee as Crockett, controlling the standard male impulses, kept his mouth shut and waited. She returned to the table, shrugged, and continued.

I checked the phone for the return number and called it. I got a message machine advising me I had reached Heels, the Kansas City area’s finest gentlemen’s club, with live and lovely entertainment twenty-four hours a day, both on, and off, the stage.

Crockett slid his chair back shook his head. Shit, he said.

Ya think? The next day was Saturday. Danni came home as usual. I left the baby with her after lunch and drove out to Kansas, just outside the city limits on K-10 on the way to Lawrence, to check out Heels.

How’d that work out for ya?

I went in the place and was stopped in a vestibule area by this huge black guy who informed me that unescorted women were not allowed inside unless they were looking for a job. He went on to say that, while I was one fine looking piece, I was a little old to be a dancer.

Crockett couldn’t help it. He grinned.

Fine, Satin said. Keep it up, laughing boy.

Keeping it up has never been an issue with you.

Oh, shit, Satin muttered, fighting a smile.

Continue with the story, Crocket said. I find myself getting very involved with the plot. I’m nearly emotionally erect.

Satin stood up, leaned over the table, and kissed him on the cheek. So, she said, sitting down, while I’m trying to decide if I should kick this big fucker in the family jewels, this other guy walks in. Short, chubby, balding, about forty. Introduces himself as Benny and asks if I’m looking for a job. I told him maybe I was. He took me inside and bought me a drink.

Nice place?

Lovely, Satin said, not rising to the bait. Bar with stools, booths facing the room around the outside walls, tables in the center, and a stage on the far wall. Two girls on stage dancing and rubbing on each other, twenty or thirty guys around, some of them with lap dances in progress. The women on stage were stripping. The lap dancers were wearing nothing but high heels and G-strings.

Oh, my, Crockett said. Exactly where is this place?

Satin ignored him. "Benny gets me a scotch and tells me how attractive I am, how they don’t use dancers much past age twenty-five, but that if I