Texas Charm, chapter 10 (Patreon)

Art slipped out of bed and headed for the bathroom, moving silently to avoid disturbing Zach. Zach could roll out of bed and be out the door in five minutes, but Art preferred a little time to putter before he had to be coherent.

And he had a lot to consider this morning. He hadn’t thought he’d allowed his conflicts with his father to color his relationships, but looking back, he had. He’d never told Zach anything beyond the fact his father had died of cancer. Maybe there had been some small part of him that feared Zach would tell him he was overreacting. As an adult, Art could see that his father was probably more worried than disappointed, but that hadn’t made it hurt any less as a young man.

Parenthood came with too many opportunities for fucking up someone else’s life. If Zach ever talked about adoption, Art was voting for a dog.

He got a pot of coffee going and then headed for a shower. When Art came out of the bathroom, Zach was sitting on the edge of the bed scratching his head.

“Good morning.”

“How dare you attach the word good to morning,” Zach said with his typical morning grumpiness.

“Do you want some coffee?”

“More than I want air to breathe. But you don’t have to get me one. I’ll get up.”

“You stay there and try and wake up. I’ll grab the coffee,” Art said. Zach frowned, but Art hurried out before Zach could point out the obvious. Yes, Art was attempting to make up for some of his shitty attitude. He always did better with little gestures than he did with words. Luckily, Zach usually accepted the tacit apology in the spirit that Art meant it.

Art was still pouring a cup when Zach followed him into the kitchen. “So, what’s the game plan with the case?”

The bands of tension around Art’s heart eased when Zach chose to drop yesterday’s drama. Art said, “I think we have to go back to basics.”

“Interviews?”

“I don’t see any other option. It’s going to be a week or longer before we get any forensics back.” Art handed over a cup, and Zach took a second to breathe in the steam before he groaned. Sex and coffee—those were Zach’s two great vices.

“So we have the father and the vocational rehabilitation specialist Minton was working with. I assume you want to start with the father.”

“I don’t think the physical therapist is going to have much to add,” Art said. Minton’s sexual misbehavior was the key to the case, and a physical therapist was not going to know much about Minton perving on girls.

“And after that?” Zach asked.

“We may have to talk to the captain about driving over to Dallas.” Losing the home-court advantage did serious damage in a murder investigation. However, most of the people who knew Minton lived in Dallas, and if they had to start ripping his life apart looking for a killer, they were going to have to spread the net wide.

“You know how he loves paying for hotel rooms,” Art said.

“At least we won’t bitch when he makes a share one.”

“You assume.” Before Art could start apologizing again, Zach blurted out, “Wait, I didn’t mean it like it came out. That was way too soon on the heels of a fight for me to be getting glib, but I really did intend that to come out in a joking kind of ha-ha way.”

That hadn’t sounded like a joke, but Zach was red and clearly embarrassed. “You’re blithering.” Art said carefully, still not sure of his way around the relationship this soon after a fight.

Zach shrugged. “I usually do when I stick my foot my mouth. It’s a thing.”

Art caught Zach’s hand in his. “I know I’ve been hard to live with lately.” For Carson to call him out for acting like an ass at work, that meant things had really gotten out of hand. Art couldn’t travel back in time and give himself a good head slap, but he could try to make it right.

“You’ve had a lot to deal with. And me being all pro-shaman dragged up a lot of shit. I’m still pissed at your father for making you feel so unwelcome. No kid deserves that.”

“I’m not a kid anymore.”

Zach sighed. “Neither am I, but the sound of my parents starting one more round of fighting is enough to make me feel like a twelve-year-old hiding in the closet. Remember that first Christmas we were dating?”

Art did. Zach had called him late on Christmas Eve. Zach’s parents had tried to stay in the same house to play nice for the grandchildren, and their fighting had nearly driven Zach out into a snowstorm. Instead he’d called Art. “Are you excusing my bad behavior by suggesting that were both dysfunctional?” Art asked.

“Yes.” Zach didn’t even sugarcoat it.

“I can live with that.”

“Good. I do love you, even at your cranky worst.”

“And I love you, even after you’ve eaten cauliflower.”

Zach punched Art in the arm. “Your obsession with my gastrointestinal track is disturbing.” When Zach put his coffee down, Art wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close. “I stink,” Zach warned. He did smell of musk and coffee, but Art held tighter.

Zach leaned into him. After a time, Zach asked, “Do you think your guide ever regrets the way everything turned out?”

“What you mean?”

“You said guides are really visitors. They’re aliens from another dimension who came here sightseeing or exploring or whatever guides do.”

“And what is my guide supposed to regret?” Art asked. He wasn’t following this conversation very well.

“Do you think he regrets the animosity between you two? Maybe he just wishes he hadn’t caused so many problems between you and your family.”

Art stepped back. Before he could say anything, his guide appeared in the corner of the kitchen near the garage door. He took one look at Art and then turned his back and started licking his own balls. “My guide is a cat. Cats are the definition of independent.” As far as Art was concerned, when he dropped dead, his guide might not even notice.

However, Zach looked confused. “Guides take certain forms because that’s the animal they follow a lot, right?”

“Yes.” Art had the uncomfortable feeling that Zach was leading an interrogation and Art was on the wrong side of it.

“So your guide is not actually a cat. He is an alien life form who has spent a lot of time hanging out with cats, and who finds a catlike way of thinking comfortable. It matches him. Right?”

“That’s the short version.”

“Have you ever owned a cat?”

Art snorted. “Hell no. My parents were not big on pets.”

“No pets at all? How is it you never mentioned that?”

“If you’d ever brought home a puppy, I’m sure it would have come up.” Art headed for the coffeepot. He had a feeling he was going to need more caffeine.

“We don’t have time for a puppy. We’d have to arrest ourselves for animal neglect.” Zach scrunched his face up in a way that implied he wished he had time for a dog. 

“I’ve never been around pets much. My sister brought a gerbil home. It vanished. There was a lot of drama about whether she lost it or whether my mother assumed that it was a mouse and disposed of it. To this day you don’t want to mention gerbils around either of them.”

“So you’ve never been around a pet cat.”

Art definitely had the feeling Zach was trying to corner him into making an incriminating statement. But Art didn’t need to own a cat to know they made questionable pets and were more interested in maintaining their independence. “I slept with a guy in college who had one.”

“The cat hated you, didn’t it?”

“With a passion,” Art agreed. “If any body part managed to hang over the edge of the bed for more than one second flat, he would attack it for all he was worth. The rest of the time he ignored me.”

“He attacked you because he wasn’t your cat. You were the stranger who came into his territory and made his person, his favorite human, scream.”

From a cat perspective, that made sense. “Okay, I am willing to stipulate that specific cat had good cause to hate me. I’m not sure where were going with this.”

Zach settled onto one of the island stools. “I had a cat. He got cancer when I was eleven or twelve, but I grew up with Hippo.”

“Hippo?”

“He was gray, and I was an unimaginative child.” Zach shrugged. “Sure, he scratched strangers who came over, and he had a bad habit of peeing on my grandfather’s shoes. But he loved me. He used to crawl in my lap and purr. When I was in bed, he would lie on the pillow and smell my breath. Late at night, he would kneed my stomach.” Zach’s voice was full of nostalgia. “I was a rough-and-tumble kid, so I know that when I picked Hippo up, I probably squeezed the hell out of him. But he would always come running to me. He loved me, and I loved him.”

Art stared at Zach. That was not the impression he had gotten from anyone who talked about cats. The guys at the station all complained about dating women who had them.

“Cats aren’t like dogs. They don’t want attention from strangers. They don’t give their affection easily. But they still love the hell out of their people, and only their people.”

Art looked over at his guide. Had the creature thought they would develop that same affection over time? If so, the guide had chosen badly. Art had no more than formed the thought before his guide stood and pinned him with an unhappy yellow stare. They locked gazes for a few seconds, and then the guide vanished. A sense of wrongness settled in the pit of Art’s stomach. “Why am I suddenly feeling like I owe more than one apology?”

And that’s when Zach did a complete one-eighty. “You don’t owe any apologies. You feel the way you feel.”

One day Art was going to get whiplash from one of their almost-arguments.  “My feelings might have less to do with you or my guide than they have to do with my own issues.”

“Your father was kind of an ass.”

Art leaned on the island. “I think ass implies active mistreatment. My father was just ignorant about both guides and teenage sons.”

“I’ve a guide of my very own, and I am amazed at the depths of my ignorance. I expected magical powers. Instead all Pochi likes to do is help me shoot things or track things down.”

“In his defense, you’re equally obsessive about tracking suspects down. You deserve that hyperactive little ball of fluff.”

Zach laughed. “Probably. So, how are we going to handle interviews if we have to go to Dallas?”

Art was happy to refocus on a less emotional topic. “The captain will call the precinct that originally did the rape investigation. The detectives should be able to help us track down anyone who might have details on the case.”

Zach headed for the coffee, claiming the last cup for himself. “That’s feeling like a long shot.”

“If you want to talk about longshots, the captain has a couple of rookies watching video from all the traffic cams that were active the night of the murder. They’re recording the plates of every car that exited the highway near the Devils triangle.”

Zach stared at Art with horror on his face. “That’s got to be thousands of cars.”

“At least,” Art said. They might as well shoot rock salt at a bear, but the captain could waste man hours however he liked. “At least he has some paperwork to show the bosses. We may be spinning our wheels, but at least were spinning them fast.” Art twirled his finger in the air.

“Your sarcasm is showing.”

“Good. I hate to feel this sarcastic without at least some of it leaking out on to you.” Art headed back to the bedroom, and Zach followed.

“The father interview should be interesting. Do you think he had any inkling that his son was starting to show signs of violence again?” Zach asked as he headed for the dresser. While he laid out clothes, Art started actually dressing.

“I have no idea. The man was clearly devastated at the loss of his son. Sometimes love inspires blindness. Hell, sometimes that’s a good thing. When we love someone, we need to be a little blind to all the ways they fuck up. If we start keeping track, the relationship will never survive.” Guilt gnawed at Art.

Zach passed him, heading for the bathroom. “You’re feeling very philosophical this morning.”

“I’m just thinking that if I had a kid who was a rapist, I would probably spend a whole lot of time in denial.” Art wondered if Minton’s parents had seen the signs of the brain tumor the first time around and simply not recognized them. “On the other hand, we’ve certainly seen a lot of parents ignore the evidence right in front of their nose. God, do you remember Mrs. Kessler?”

Zach started the shower. “Oh hell, yes. Helen Keller had better eyesight. I thought when her son confessed, she would finally admit that her baby boy was a raging sociopath. I underestimated human stupidity.”

“You underestimated the ability of a parent to fuck up when it comes to their kid,” Art shouted over the running water. He finished dressing and waited for Zach to come out of the bathroom before he picked up the conversation.

“I really think there was some part of her that knew the truth, but she could not admit it, not even to herself.”

Zach scrubbed his hair with a towel. “You think that’s Minton’s father?”

Art didn’t have enough of the pieces to know. “Maybe.”

“If someone had threatened his son, do you think he would’ve called the police?”

“I have no idea,” Art said. “Do you think someone went to the father?”

Zach threw his towel through the bathroom door and sat on the edge of the bed. “At this point, I don’t know where this case is going. My fear is that it’s going nowhere. Most of the time, if we’re this confused two days in,that means we’re screwed.”

“I don’t think the bosses are going to let us throw up our hands on this one.”

“Have you ever known me to give up?”

“Not even when you should. You and your fluffy little warrior are both annoyingly persistent,” Art said. “Honestly, that’s one of the few advantages we have on this case.”

Zach leaned so he pressed his shoulder against Art’s. His shower-warmed skin felt so nice that Art wanted to tell the case and the world in general to wait while they made love. Unfortunately, they simply didn’t have time. Being responsible sucked. “We’ll figure it out,” Zach said with confidence. “Either that or we can cash in our pensions and go live as reclusive hermits on some mountaintop where the captain can’t find us.”

“You hate the cold,” Art said.

“Details, details,” Zach said with an airy wave. “But maybe we should solve the case and avoid any need to flee.”

Chapter 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-6-19034447 

Chapter 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-2-19050307 

Chapter 3: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-3-19066252 

Chapter 4: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-4-19087127 

Chapter 5: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-5-19132901 

Chapter 6: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-six-19159661 

Chapter 7: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-7-19179823 

Chapter 8: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-8-19190078 

Chapter 9: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-9-19201497 

Chapter 10: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-10-19220764 

Chapter 11, 12: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-11-19228890 

Chapter 13, 14: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-13-19244456 

Chapter 15: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-15-19264338 

Chapter 16, 17: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-16-19276375 

Chapter 18, 19: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-18-19290091 

Chapter 20: https://www.patreon.com/posts/texas-charm-20-19301548