Read Online Spiked by Mark Arsenault - Free Book Online

“Is there anything I can, ah, do for you?”
    â€œThank you, Danny’s done quite enough.” With that, she turned to the next person in line and the current swept Eddie along. He gave Melissa a raised eyebrow, but she showed no reaction.
    They greeted Nowlin’s father, his sister, stepsister, and assorted relations arranged in what seemed to be decreasing order of emotional distress. Nowlin’s father could barely stand. The teenaged cousin from Oakland at the end of the line probably got more upset when the Raiders failed to cover the spread.
    The line emptied through a wide archway into a reception room. It was crowded with mourners, many of them holding flaky pastries and collecting their crumbs into white cocktail napkins.
    Pastries? Then there had to be coffee.
    Eddie left Melissa and eased through the crowd as fast as courtesy allowed. He tried to make sense of what Jesse had said. She was used to being alone? Nowlin worked long hours when the news got hot, but all the reporters did that. And Danny had done quite enough? Enough what? He got himself killed somehow. Is that what she meant?
    There was a two-gallon chrome coffee carafe on a long maple table in the back of the room. Eddie grabbed a Styrofoam cup and pulled the handle to let the mind-juice flow.
    Damn. Empty.
    He held the cup in place and tilted the dispenser forward. Watery brew dribbled out. Slowly, slowly. Just a little more—
    A reflection in the chrome caught his eye. Red mittens. And a face he had seen before. Eddie glanced over his shoulder. In the window above the casket, a woman peered into the chamber. Her breath froze a small white patch on the glass. The wind pulled her hair and the ends of her white scarf.
    She was the Cambodian woman who had watched from the rooftop when the police took Nowlin from the water.
    She looked older than Eddie had guessed before, maybe mid-thirties. She was also more stunning that he remembered. High, sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw, and cords of muscle running down her neck, like an adolescent boy’s warrior-princess fantasy girl, peeking into the wake of the man she had watched police take from the canal.
    Eddie paid attention. There was no such thing as coincidence.
    The woman stepped out of sight, only to appear a moment later across the reception room. She spoke to no one as she walked past people waiting in line, then stopped before the table with Nowlin’s picture. She studied it briefly, then glanced about the room. Eddie turned around and pretended to get more coffee. He watched her in the chrome. She stepped toward the table for an instant, spun around and paced toward the exit.
    Melissa was tied up, nodding politely as two school board candidates bent her ear. Leaving her behind, Eddie exited faster than courtesy permitted, covering bumps and gentle shoves with a string of apologies.
    By the time he had reached the street, the woman was already a block away. With no time to collect his overcoat, Eddie turned up the collar of his suit jacket, jammed his hands in his pants pockets and walked after her. The winter air iced his sinuses and the wind shredded his coat as he followed her deeper, into the jumble of windy streets, misshapen city blocks and triple-deckers known as the Acre.

Chapter 7
    He had lost her.
    The three kids yelled Spanish over the pulse of American rap music beating from a radio so big it should have had wheels. They discussed Eddie’s loud and haltingly spoken questions and wild gesticulations that were meant to ask: Have you seen a woman with red mittens?
    Somewhere in this labyrinth of streets, originally laid out by Irish immigrants to resemble the labyrinth they had left back home, the woman from the funeral home had vanished. In his search for her, Eddie had twice walked past these kids playing music and kicking a beanbag to each other without letting it touch the street. A woman with centerfold looks wouldn’t slip unnoticed past these three