Worse Angels

by Laird Barron

  More paintings and photographs—the example near my door was done in murky oils and portrayed a picket of horse skulls planted along a dirt road. The skulls shone dully in purple twilight. A lone cavalry officer, saber in hand, slumped atop a roan mare; the roan’s muzzle tilted down and toward the viewer. Her eye brimmed with purple fire, bone white at the rim, and she was Death’s mount.

  My digs were cozy. The usual amenities, plus a view of Newtown Creek. The tiny parlor featured a rolltop desk and a shelf stocked with clothbound books on regional geography, agriculture, wildlife, and the like. Did anyone ever glance at them besides the maid? I clicked on an honest-to-gods Tiffany reading lamp to bask in the buttery warm glow. Queen-size bed with a thick headboard; chestnut engravings of cavalry horses rampant beneath a full moon. A fifty-dollar-a-night motel would’ve been sensible. I wasn’t in the mood to stare at suspicious water stains or cigarette-burned carpets while sodium lamps fizzed and flickered in a parking lot next to an overpass. The number one reason I chose comfort over utility? Badja Adeyemi was on the hook for expenses.

  I showered; changed into a dress shirt and pants, newish Chuck Taylors, and a heavy leather jacket. The revolver went into the room safe. I clipped the jawbone knife to my belt and the jacket disguised its presence. Then I went downstairs and strolled around the neighborhood to stretch my legs and settle my mind after the drive. I was borderline underdressed for the weather, so I moved briskly.

  Deep twilight tinted the sky. The wind tasted of dead grass and moss, mingled with hints of snow and the tang of creosote and exhaust. Car horns blatted south where lights clustered, marking tenements and deserted industrial towers. We used to switch off, back in the dark ages of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. NYC is notable because it has never slept and the world once thought its inhabitants mad. Even as late as the 1970s, come sundown, suburbia was a wilderness illuminated by a nightlight across most of the U.S.

  What attractions drew people here other than business? The National Soaring Museum, Woodlawn National Cemetery, and the Corning Museum of Glass were draws. Elmira and Big Flats hosted various industries. Agriculture, of course. Otherwise? Difficult to reconcile the attraction, although I felt a certain ineffable quality of atmosphere, an electromagnetic current that might hypnotize a vulnerable mind.

  My interview with Sean Pruitt’s mother was scheduled for tomorrow. I’d arrived early to soak in the atmosphere and to permit my subconscious a jump on the problem. Whatever might be unfolding needed a chance to begin and I thought it prudent to brace for contact. Perhaps a strange concept, considering that Sean Pruitt was in the ground going on four years. The hairs on my neck said, yes, oh yes; be it suicide or foul play, gears were in motion. The Observer Effect might have awakened a dreaming beast. I didn’t require a fortune-teller to clue me in to the presence of dark forces. Those sonsofbitches are always lurking.

  * * *

  ■■■

  Dinner at a solid Italian restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel improved my disposition. Probably because the angel on my left shoulder won the argument about saying to hell with my theoretical diet or budget. I called Meg and chatted with her for a few minutes while waiting for the check.

  Meg told me about her day. She’d run into an acquaintance and didn’t duck for cover before it was too late.

  “It was bizarre. Chick wore pajamas at the grocery store. Used to be the fashion, maybe it’s back. Her voice, though. Says to me in a little girl’s affect, I bwoke a wibby-wib, and she did the cry-eye with her fist. Grown woman in a blouse and pajamas on line at ShopRite. We haven’t spoken since senior year in high school.”

  “Didn’t duck in time?” I said. “You gotta hone those catlike reflexes.” Meg didn’t need to hone a damned thing—she’d practiced gymnastics and dance since her youth. I’d seen her press into a handstand from a seated position. She could kick over her head without stretching first.

  She laughed and told me to shut it.

  All was quiet on the western front; she’d put Devlin to bed and had settled in with Night of the Hunter. Minerva was on edge in my absence. The dog paced the house, grumbling at doors, which while not completely out of character, sounded strident tonight. I didn’t utter my predictable advice to make sure the place was locked tight; crime doesn’t skip small towns, even placid whistle-stops like Tilson, blah, blah. I gave Meg my love and let her get back to that bad boy dreamboat, young Robert Mitchum. I walked to the hotel, naming the constellations as red blinking plane lights crawled beneath them. I also contemplated my luck in finding a woman who properly appreciated Robert Mitchum.

  My room was dim except for a puddle of light in the mini-parlor. The silhouette of a woman stood in the corner where a large window overlooked the rear lot. I caught the slightest trace of ginger. My childhood rushed back. Tepora Coleridge favored a ginger scent and I remembered it from her hugs.

  I nearly blurted, Mom? like a total rube, and flipped the wall switch. Bright light revealed where curtains gathered and bunched. Tracking right, I spotted a scented candle. Wisps of smoke coiled from its wick. The maid had replaced the towels and folded my discarded clothes. I remained motionless, processing a cascade of emotions and the wider implications.

  It had been a while since I’d shed real tears. My throat burned and it was close for a moment. Meg was right; the docs missed something when they scanned my gray matter. An unclosing wound, a tumor, the ghosts of my sinful past.

  * * *

  ■■■

  I dreamed I was in colonial times, clad in my skivvies and carrying the boar spear that lies under the bed in my cabin in the real world. A blacksmith in Pawtucket had forged it per my unique specifications. Soldiers hunted me through a forest. Cocked hats, long coats, and muskets. I made my stand in a clearing. An officer on horseback emerged from the misty woods. He wore a crimson and bronze high school letter jacket. His face was rigid and pasty—a death mask. The horse’s head was skinned to the bone, glistening with blood. It snapped the air in anticipation of tasting mine.

  I awakened, sweating, heart racing.

  Be careful, Badja Adeyemi said. The laptop monitor faded and brightened, auto-playing a video I’d selected and then fallen asleep watching. Adeyemi whispered his warning to Sean, but the camera microphone caught it just fine. Ghosts, the both of them. Sean and Linda’s wedding day as documented by Sean’s father, Dr. Alex Pruitt, and his Handycam. Adeyemi, drunk as a lord, had pulled young Sean to the side for some avuncular tips on how to handle women.

  Be careful, kid. She’s got a wandering eye.

  The scene went to black and the speaker hissed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  June Adeyemi Pruitt lived alone in a historical neighborhood on the edge of town. Many of the houses were stamped with bronze plaques, designating their cultural import to the community. The Pruitt home was done in the Colonial Revivalist style; two stories plus an attic, painted white with lemon trim. It sat between similar houses; one brown, the other forest-green. Everybody shared a massive elm that towered over the rumpled sidewalk.

  A squirrel cleaned its paws upon a lower branch, in profile, its beady eye fixed judgmentally.

  “There’s a hawk who’d love to meet you,” I said in passing.

  June Pruitt greeted me at ten A.M. before I could knock twice. My above-average haircut, very posh suit, and affable demeanor were insufficiently charming. She didn’t offer to shake. Her mouth crimped, like she was biting down on pain. Four years may as well be yesterday for a bereaved mother.

  Hardwood floors squeaked underfoot as she led me to the living room. I sat in the center of a couch on a macramé spread. She remained aloof near the window—whether an act of unconscious bias or by deliberate stratagem, I couldn’t say. In her teaching role she probably maintained a measure of authority by standing over her students. Piano to her left, a barrel-shaped floor lamp to her right. The chipped lamp base was
decorated with faded illustrations of Native American eroticism. She wore red gemstone beads over a black sweater. No fur or feathers meant no dogs or cats and an empty home. I maintain that long sojourns in empty homes are precursors to madness. Her long skirt was black and also her shoes. Her hair was steel gray. I searched for the resemblance to her brother, Badja, and wouldn’t have seen any if I hadn’t known they were siblings. Badja Adeyemi radiated wickedness. June Pruitt projected cynicism, the by-product of barely modulated grief.

  We exchanged pleasantries. How was I finding the Southern Tier? I smiled instead of confessing my disquiet.

  “Did Badja mention that Senator Redlick was born in Horseheads?” She spoke with a slight Northeastern drawl.

  “I’m aware the senator is almost seventy and still brags about his senior class winning state when he gets on CNN. What else is necessary to know?”

  “He’s an avowed UFO nut. He claims SETI and the Voyager probe are terrible ideas.”

  “Really? He never mentioned it during his campaign interviews.”

  “The people who write his speeches edit out that sort of thing. Badja says the guy gets a few drinks under his belt and rants that our attempts to contact alien civilizations are tantamount to ringing the dinner bell—with humanity as the main course.”

  “Anything else?”

  “The Redlicks regard this valley as their fiefdom and the senator is their king. Some claim he’s embarrassed by his accent. He retains an elocutionist, a retired actor from the Shakespeare Theatre Company.”

  “The rain in Spain . . .” I said.

  “I’m serious.” She looked it.

  I cleared my throat.

  “The senator hasn’t resided here since 1979. He was Mr. Gerald Redlick in those days.”

  “Doesn’t discourage him from shooting campaign ads in the old neighborhood with the blessings of the chamber of commerce.”

  “Your valley didn’t become the site of the Jeffers Project by chance. Royalty hath its privileges.”

  “The Redlick family makes all things possible.” The fire of her cynicism brightened the room.

  “There are those who fight, those who pray, and those who work.” Thus, I demonstrated roughly half of the knowledge I retained from my Western Civ classes. “You work, though you could retire. I admire your dedication. High school English isn’t for the weak.”

  “Well, I pray a bit too,” she said, almost pleased. “Alex, my ex-husband, was a state biologist. He retired. This is his house; I’m but a tenant. Alex lives in the village. He couldn’t stand to look at this place anymore.”

  “Your daughter-in-law returned to California.”

  “Linda went to Healdsburg. Wine country. Fire country.”

  Despite her stoic demeanor, her evident distrust, June Pruitt wanted to talk. Her cadence, her word choices, the thematic body, were typical of educated people who voluntarily interview with the police and other professional snoops. She’d rehearsed.

  “Linda attended USC,” I said. “Parents deceased. Siblings in Utah and Montana. She’s a color specialist.”

  “Yes, she freelances for various agencies.”

  “What is that?” I’d already researched the basic answer. The question was designed to appeal to her intellect, her inclination to lecture.

  “It’s rather opaque. Let me try. A client owns a fast-food restaurant. Linda helps him choose colors to achieve specific goals. A relaxed environment would feature softer tones. Want people to buy and then move along promptly? Discordant colors. That’s a simple example. Linda and her occupation are hardly simple.”

  “Fascinating. As for your husband, I’d prefer to interview Dr. Pruitt as well. Assuming I could get him on the line.”

  “Giving you the cold shoulder? That’s his way. He considers the matter settled. I’ll call him. He needs to participate in this . . .” She absently twisted her wedding band. “My other children live abroad. Sean and Linda never . . .” She folded her hands and I realized that they were nearly as large as Badja Adeyemi’s; and then the sibling likeness materialized. “I presume you know what happened—what they claim happened—to Sean.”

  “I’ve read the file.”

  “You’ve read the file.” The flatness of her voice matched her expression. “It claims he committed suicide. No reason given. Oh, well, the implication is that he was depressed and mixed medications with some kind of drug—”

  “A hallucinogen,” I said.

  “Yes, a hallucinogen. Then he went to work, drove to a remote area on the site, and . . .” She blinked and swallowed. “And I don’t believe that’s the whole story.”

  “Why not?”

  “Did the file happen to mention the paramedics or the staff at the medical examiner’s office stole his wedding ring?”

  “No. The report’s a sketchy piece of work, I’ll admit.”

  “Isn’t it, though? That’s the kind of people I’m dealing with. The kind of people who steal a dead man’s wedding ring.”

  “How long was Sean on antidepressants?” I said.

  “Many years. He struggled with clinical depression since his youth.”

  “Yet you don’t agree that he could’ve committed suicide.”

  “He didn’t. We discussed his condition on numerous occasions; its symptoms, the treatment. He didn’t exhibit suicidal ideation. Depression afflicted him like a low-grade fever; always nagging. The worst symptoms manifested as lethargy. At his very worst, his very lowest, he’d lose interest in work or socializing and retreat to his books and papers. Employment proved a challenge. He was a model employee at his best.”

  “Sean was never admitted for in-patient therapy? The odds of suicide are much higher for in-patients.”

  “Was he committed or institutionalized? Never. He smoked pot on occasion. Drank socially. Sean was spiritual; a by-product of grappling with mental illness is you tend to excavate the psyche. I assume from his comments he dabbled with LSD, peyote. Conscious-altering drugs. I never knew him to have a problem, though.”

  “Coke, heroin? Anything like that?”

  Her nostrils flared in disgust.

  “Not a chance. What did my dear brother say when he sent you here?”

  “He told me to ask you.”

  She studied my face and hands, looking past the scars.

  “You’re a special kind of detective. The kind my brother would hire. Not a cop. He doesn’t trust cops.”

  “Oh?”

  “Cops hate black men.”

  “Cops hate everybody who isn’t a cop,” I said. “Isn’t it a fact the only color that brother cops see is blue?”

  “He isn’t in the brotherhood anymore. Notice he chose you, a stranger, rather than call upon one of his so-called brothers. He was a popular, lonely man while in the force and plain lonely once he quit.”

  “Mrs. Pruitt—”

  “Do you enjoy speaking to him?”

  “Ma’am—”

  “In your estimation, is he good or decent?”

  “You would agree that as a ‘special’ kind of detective, I’m the last person to judge him. I’m carrying out his orders, for a price. Cut and dried.”

  “You’re ronin, not samurai.”

  I appreciated her mind the more we spoke.

  “That captures the essence, ma’am. Bushido is for suckers.”

  “I bet he gets a kick out of you, Mr. Coleridge. You’re rough. You’re rough, and you do what you’re told. Badja gravitates toward men of dubious character. Criminals and thugs, and men who disguise their thuggery with uniforms and suits.”

  I stood abruptly. The movement surprised her like ice cracking underfoot or big, lovable Fido showing his fangs. Her eyes widened as possibilities undreamt of moments ago forcefully presented themselves. While she recovered, I strode to the piano and examined a collect
ion of photographs. Sean, Linda-the-widow, and June’s ex-husband, Alex. Badja made a lone appearance in an extended family triptych. There was a handful of the nephews and nieces, professionally posed, and several of Sean beginning in grade school. He played football and basketball in high school. The last shot of him was during the holidays, within months of his death. Frizzy hair, round face, forced smile. His mother’s features, though softer. A weary young man ground down by the world; smiling to reassure his beloveds that he was right as rain, dependable, and happy. One’s beloveds are so very invested in one’s perceived happiness.

  Next to that photograph rested a framed newspaper clipping of Badja Adeyemi as bodyguard, escorting Gerald Redlick into the Redlick Group building in Manhattan. Adeyemi glared at the camera. Reminded me of the hawk roosting atop the lamppost at the Jeffers site. Predators share a particular affect if you catch them in the moment.

  “That was his bad cop expression,” she said in a shaky voice. “Redlick took a shine to him. Two domineering men with a birthplace in common. They were comfortable because each understood the other. I used to hide that photo in a scrapbook. Now that Sean is gone and Alex has abandoned me, I leave it there as a reminder. Birds of a feather.”

  “Were Badja and Sean close?”

  “Badja made sure he was hired on at the site. I understand Sean hounded him.”

  “But were they close?” I said.

  “Sean admired Badja’s courage and toughness. Badja adored Sean. Wouldn’t admit it if you had him in thumbscrews. Tenderness is weakness in my brother’s world.”