Chapter 7

Mickie's next shift did not start well. Arriving at the office, she found a black unmarked car in front of the building. It screamed 'Cop!', and so did her gut.

In the hallway she was met by a tall man in a black suit and tie. His square jawed, rugged face was topped by a regulation haircut of black hair just starting to go grey at the temples. He was so obviously a plainclothes cop she nearly laughed.

“Mikkela Korpi?” the man asked.

“Yeah.” she replied. “Who's asking?”

The man raised an eyebrow. “I'm Detective Harper. I'd like to ask you a few questions.”

She looked into the driver's room, where three other cabbies were doing their end of shift paperwork. Across the hall, Carolyn Parks, the office manager, stood up from her desk.

“Use my office.” she said to Mickie. “I could stand a break.” She ran her hand through her greying hair, and stepped out of the door, patting Mickie on the shoulder on her way past. Carolyn was pretty much the office mom, as well as manager. Her touch gave Mickie a quick feeling of reassurance.

“Thanks, Carolyn.” Mickie said.

The detective followed Mickie into the small office, shutting the door behind him. Mickie walked around the desk and sat in Carolyn's chair, setting her bag on the desk. The detective frowned, but pulled up the only other chair, and sat. Emily sat up in the bag and glared at him.

Detective Harper raised his eyebrow again. “Is that a cat?”

“No, she's a mountain lion!” Mickie could not stop herself from snarking. “Why do you guys keep asking me that?”

Emily hissed. The detective glowered at them both. Mickie leaned back in the chair, folded her arms across her chest, and waited.

Detective Harper pulled a small notebook and pen out of his pocket. He flipped a few pages, and looked up.

“Have you ever worked for Alfano's Pizza?” he asked her.

“Nope.” she replied.

“Ever eat there?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“Gotten delivery from them?”

“They're on the west side. I live on the east side. I doubt they deliver that far.”

“And yet, you saw their car last night.”

Mickie could not stop the eyeroll. “I saw a car with a pizza top light on it. On the North side.”

“How do you know where their office is?”

“I'm a cab driver. It's my job to know where things are.”

“Did you see the company name?”

“No, I was too busy trying to get the license number.”

“Did you get a look at the driver?”

“No. It was dark, and he was driving fast.”

“How do you know the driver was male?”

That made Mickie pause. “I don't know. I only saw a head in silhouette.” She closed her eyes. “Short hair, large nose, heavy brow, snarling expression.”

“Why did you chase the car?”

“I was trying to get the license number.” she repeated.

“And why was that?”

“Because it came tearing out of Cherokee Marsh through an open gate that had had its chain cut. That seemed just a little suspicious.”

He paused to make a note, then asked, “And what were you doing there?”

“I stopped there after dropping off a fare in Comanche.” she said. “I was thinking of taking a walk.”

“The park closes at dusk.”

“Am I being charged with trespassing, now?”

The detective flipped back a few pages in his notebook.

“A month ago, you were involved in an incident with a missing Red Top cab. What can you tell me about that?”

Mickie's eyebrows shot up. “I turned a corner and found an empty cab.” she said.

“How did you know it was there?”

"I had a hunch."

“You had a hunch.”

She huffed out an exasperated breath. “Yes, I had a hunch.”

“Why were you looking for it?”

“Dispatch had been telling the whole fleet all evening to keep an eye out for it.”

“So how did you find it?”

“Like I said, I had a hunch.”

“And where were you when you had this hunch?”

Mickie hesitated. “I was in the taxi stand at Lake and Langdon.”

“So you drove all the way down Park St. to the south side on a hunch.”

“Yes.”

The detective stared at her. After several moments Emily stood up and put herself between him and Mickie. She arched her back, tail lashing. Mickie put a hand on the little cat's neck.

“Settle down. Attacking him won't help things any.” she spoke silently to the cat.

Emily rumbled a growl in her chest, but sat down. She continued to stare at the detective, her tail lashing.

“Are we done here?” Mickie asked?

“Not quite.” said the detective. “Why were you at Cherokee Marsh last night?”

“I picked up a fare at the airport. They were going to Comanche, off Wheeler. After I dropped them off, I went to the parking lot by the road to the boat launch.”

“What address did you take them to?”

Mickie gave him the address, saying, “You can check that with our dispatch records.”

“And do you know anyone who works for Alfano's Pizza?”

“No. I don't”

“Did you know the driver of the Red Top Cab?”

“No!”

Again, he stared at her for a moment. She glared back. Emily hissed.

“Don't leave town.” the detective said.

He stood and turned to open the door. As he left the room, he said over his shoulder, “If I have more questions, I'll be in touch. And keep that mountain lion under control.”

She watched him leave. Emily turned to her, and licked her cheek. Mickie put her arms around the cat and buried her face in fur. She sat there hugging Emily for several minutes.

“Are you OK?”

Mickie looked up to see Carolyn in the open doorway.

“I saw the cop leave, so I came back in. Did he give you a hard time?”

Mickie sat up. “It's his job, I guess.” she said, standing. Emily hopped up onto her shoulder.

“I should get to work.” She said, lifting her bag off the desk. “Thanks for letting me use your office.”

“No problem.” Carolyn replied. “You be careful out there.”

“I will.” Mickie said as she left the room.

-)O(-

The first few hours of her shift were fairly boring, if you discounted the rush hour traffic. She took a couple school kids home from after school programs, picked up an office worker going to get her car from the shop, and carried a package to one of the hospital labs.

Around 5:30 pm she got a call at the Concourse Hotel on the Outer Ring, the set of one way streets a block out from the Capitol. She pulled up in the taxi stand by the front door, and four businessmen came out. They were heading to a fairly high end restaurant out by Hilldale, and had obviously been waiting in the hotel bar.

Three of them piled into the back seat, but unsurprisingly, the drunkest one of the lot crawled into the front seat beside her. As she pulled into traffic, he started regaling her with an account of their activities so far that day.

“And you would not believe!” he started, reaching out and grasping her wrist.

Without thinking, Mickie slapped his hand, saying, “No, no! Hands off the driver!” at the same time as Emily stuck her head up and hissed at him.

The man plastered himself against the passenger door, looking at her in horror.

“I am so sorry!” he exclaimed. “I don't know what I was thinking! I am so sorry! I never do things like that!”

“”It's ok.” Mickie said, “Just keep your hands to yourself. We'll be fine.”

“Oh, I am so sorry! I didn't mean to touch you! You're the driver! I would never do anything to get in your way! I am so sorry!”

“It's ok, you're fine, just...”

“I am so sorry! Please don't think badly of me!”

And on he went.

Mickie stopped trying to talk to him. He kept apologizing, over and over. The other three men in the back seat tried to calm him down, but he was focussed on Mickie, and his apology.

All the way down Gorham to University, “I'm not a bad person!”

Through campus, “Really! I'm a nice guy! I'm so sorry!”

Out Campus Drive, “I'm a family man! I'm sorry!”

All the rest of the way to their destination, the man kept apologizing. By the time they got him out of the cab, the other three men were so embarrassed that the tipped her twice the amount of the fare.

But throughout the rest of her shift, whenever her cab was empty, she kept thinking about the car coming out of the marsh, the missing driver, and the Red Top Cab that was ditched South in the Flowers. What was going on? Why did she have to be involved in this?

She picked up some fried chicken for dinner, and pulled into the overlook at Hoyt park. Sharing her chicken with Emily, her mind continued to worry at the topic.

Queen Iris told her she had power. Emily said she knew more than she knew. She thought of various times in her life when she had a hunch, or a dream that turned out to be a warning.

There had been a night when she was driving out in the country, just after dusk. She'd had a sudden feeling of danger, and took her foot off her gas pedal. A deer had leapt across the road in front of her, missing her car by inches. Had she not moved her foot, she would have hit it.

How many times had she felt the need to slow on the highway, and come suddenly on a fresh accident, or a hiding patrol car? She didn't usually think about these things. They were just what she considered a normal part of driving.

Was this power? She wasn't sure. And how could such small hunches be useful beyond keeping her safer when driving? She didn't see how this could help in dealing with whatever Iris saw happening.

“These are just the things getting past the walls you've built between you and your power.” Emily said. “The little things that slip through the cracks.”

“What do you mean?” Mickie asked the cat.

“You used to believe what you saw. When you were a child, you saw things. You talked to the creatures you saw. You listened to what they told you.”

Emily gazed up at her from the cab bag.

“But you were told you were imagining things. You stopped believing, stopped looking and listening.”

“Maybe I was imagining things.” Mickie said.

“Are you imagining me?” Emily asked. “Am I not real?”

Emily set a paw on Mickie's arm and extended a single claw into her flesh. It hurt. A drop of blood appeared.

“Does that cause pain? Does it bleed? Is that not real?”

Mickie looked down at the little grey and white cat beside her, at the drop of blood on her arm. Emily licked the blood off her arm and sat back in her bag.

“How many times have you had visions that turned out true? That saved lives? Or could have?”

Mickie saw again Ivan, her first fae cat, lifeless in the ashes. But also, the blind man tapping his way toward the construction zone. The boy in the corn dog stand. The little girl who would have run into the street had she not stopped her cab in just the right spot.

“Great power doesn't always do grand things. Often, it does many small things. But they add up. And the more you see, the more you can help. But if you block that power, you help no one.”

“I suppose you may be right.” Mickie conceded. “But I don't know how. I mean, I don't know how I'm blocking it, so I don't know how to stop blocking it.”

“Just try not to ignore the hunches, for a start.” Emily said. “I've got a hunch the right path will appear”

Emily gave her a cat smile, and turned to finish her chicken.