Deception

by Randy Alcorn

  “Probably. Wait, yeah, I did. Pictures of the professor and other students.”

  “In front of the fireplace?”

  “I think so.”

  “Still have them?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Don’t you save any pictures?”

  “Only ones I want. I don’t keep pictures of people I hate. Not like Tasha. She keeps everything on her computer. She’s a geek.”

  “You’re sure you don’t have those pictures? Can you check?”

  “Why?”

  “If you find them I’ll give you a Starbucks card.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten dollars.”

  She laughed. “Not worth it.”

  “Twenty-five dollars?”

  “Thirty.”

  “Okay. You find me some pictures taken in the professor’s living room that night—but they have to be where the fireplace mantel is visible—then I’ll give you a thirty-dollar Starbucks card.”

  And they say we don’t negotiate with terrorists.

  At 2:00 p.m. Suda entered the conference room. To soften her, I’d brought in a cup of coffee and a white frosted donut with those colored sprinkles that irritate me.

  “Coffee and donut?” I asked.

  She shook her head and sat down. “I have twenty minutes, that’s it.”

  “What time did you come to the professor’s house November 20?”

  “Near four, I think.”

  “I guess if I needed to know, I could just check the log.”

  “I guess.” No twitch.

  “You did sign the log, didn’t you?”

  “Probably.”

  “Could you point out your signature?” I handed her the log. “We’ve got paramedics, criminalists, Clarence and me, Hatch, Lynn Carpenter, Manny, and the uniforms you ushered out. You must have come in somewhere between me and the uniforms. So … why didn’t you sign in?”

  “They know me.”

  “They know me. And Hatch. And Manny. They signed us in.”

  “It was a zoo when I got there.”

  “Guerino and Dorsey remember talking with you inside and when you left. They don’t remember you arriving.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Where’d you park?”

  “Around the corner.”

  “What corner?”

  “The street next to the professor’s. 22nd?”

  “I left before you did, to check my messages at home. I took 22nd down to Stark. I didn’t see your car. And it wasn’t on Oak either.”

  “There were lots of cars.”

  “I notice cars. Was it your red Toyota Camry?”

  “I guess.”

  “Why would you have to guess?”

  “Yeah, it was my car. It’s a Camry. It’s red.”

  “How many feet from Oak were you parked?”

  “Forty?”

  “East side of 22nd?”

  “West. Look,” she said, “you showed up at one of my investigations, remember? Did I harass you about it?”

  “I’m not harassing you.”

  She got up, teeth clenched, and stormed out of the room in a cold front. If she’d had a broom, she could have flown.

  Have I mentioned I have a way with women?

  I removed a few of the sprinkles and ate her donut.

  I was going to meet Clarence at the Trib, but I had an extra fifteen minutes, so I stopped by to see Phil in crime lab. He wished me Merry Christmas. At least he wasn’t wearing an elf hat. I handed him a clear evidence bag.

  “Look,” I said, “here’s that gum wrapper, still sealed in your bag. I realize it was careless of me to drop it at the crime scene, but I shouldn’t have picked it up. And I shouldn’t have asked you to give it back to me. It puts us both at risk. I don’t feel right holding on to it.”

  “Conscience?”

  “You don’t need to mention this. You’d be in as much trouble as I would.”

  “Okay. I’ll just put it with the other evidence. I’ll just change the date and leave it unmarked. Doubt if anyone’ll notice. Nobody needs to know. As long as nobody needs to know about that contaminated blood sample.”

  “Merry Christmas,” I said.

  Clarence had been routinely invading my workspace. I returned the favor that afternoon. It was dry, so I decided to cut through Terry Schrunk Plaza south to Jefferson and head four blocks west to Broadway, where I turned left and entered the front door of the Oregon Tribune.

  When the two gals at the front desk of the Trib asked for my ID, I showed them. When that didn’t appear good enough, I showed them my Glock in my shoulder holster. I showed it to the security guard, along with my ID. He told me I might have to surrender my weapon. I told him that my Glock and I are conjoined twins and it would require a delicate surgery. I wondered if he felt up to it. He got on the phone. They let me through, then said, “Mr. Abernathy will come down.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m going up.” Not that I knew exactly where I was going. I’d visited the Tribune about as often as I’d visited the Kremlin. No offense to the Kremlin.

  Journalists are nervous about people with guns. This is understandable since they do so much to aggravate gun-owners. They write columns about how regular people shouldn’t be allowed to have guns. Of course, I don’t think journalists should be allowed to write words, which have destroyed more lives than guns. These thoughts contributed to my self-righteous swagger as I walked through the state capitol of self-righteousness.

  I bumped into Clarence as I was about to get in the elevator. Clarence is a lot to bump into.

  “I told them I’d come down to meet you,” he said.

  “What a coincidence. I told them I’d come up to meet you. Apparently we were both right. I’m tired of you occupying my world. I feel like occupying yours for a change.”

  “It’s my job to be part of your world. It’s not your job to be here.”

  “Here I am. Loaded firearm and all.” I said the words loud, drunk loud, though I hadn’t had a drink since yesterday. I patted my jacket and watched people look at us nervously.

  “Homicide,” I said loudly.

  One woman in dress and high heels and fancy scarf, who I recognized as a columnist, turned pale.

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “I don’t commit them. I investigate them. There’ve been threats about vigilantes going after journalists because of slander. I’m here to guard your life.”

  “He’s joking,” Clarence said.

  It was fun, a Christmas present to myself, turning the tables and making people nervous who make their living making others nervous.

  Clarence’s editor Winston blew in like a hurricane. “Who do you think you are, barging in here?” he bellowed, Louis Armstrong-like, with cheeks to match.

  “I think I am Police Detective Ollie Chandler. Wait, hold on.” I pulled out my ID card, read it, and said, “I am Detective Ollie Chandler, and I’m paid to barge into places. Excuse me if my presence is inconvenient and uncomfortable. You journalists have always been sensitive to my convenience and comfort, and I certainly want to reciprocate.”

  Winston, his mammoth cheeks red, scowled. I scowled back. His natural face gave him a big advantage. He was the Grinch who stole Christmas. If an elf hat had been nearby, I would have crammed it over his head.

  “Okay, enough holiday cheer,” I said to Clarence. “Where’s Carp?”

  Clarence led me through the giant maze, explaining that most photojournalists just had workstations but Carp had her own office.

  She greeted us warmly. I presented her with three Papa Murphy’s coupons. “Clipped them myself.” She gave me an endearing look.

  I sat down and showed Carp the crime scene log. “You signed in at 3:51, but they didn’t sign you out when you left to take the pictures on the street. When was that?”

  “That’ll be easy,” she said. “The pictures all have a date and time stamp.” She maximized her photo program and looked at the slid
es on her screen, then checked Properties. “Looks like I took all those pictures in eight minutes, between 4:46 and 4:54.”

  “That was quick.”

  “It was spooky out there. I don’t hang around murders like you do.”

  I flipped through the neighborhood pictures on her computer screen three times.

  “No red Camry. Suda’s car wasn’t where she said it was.”

  “Why would she lie?” Clarence said.

  “And why would she park away from the scene? Above all, why didn’t she sign in? And why don’t Dorsey and Guerino remember her arriving?”

  “Is it really that important that she didn’t sign in?” Clarence asked. “I mean, obviously she was there. We all saw her.”

  “Suppose the officers were right and she didn’t slip by them,” I said.

  “But she had to slip by,” Clarence said. “What other explanation is there?”

  I looked at them both, preparing to say what I’d been thinking: “When Dorsey and Guerino arrived at Palatine’s, Kim Suda was already in the house.”

  35

  “That hurts my pride, Watson. It is a petty feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride.”

  SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 7:30 P.M.

  KENDRA ARRIVED at the old brownstone for Christmas Eve dinner, bringing a vegetable stew, a fruit salad with watermelon and grapes and pineapple, and a festive display of raw vegetables, including minicarrots and those little jobbers that look like corn on the cob. I pulled out some Thousand Island dressing for dip, so it wasn’t a total loss.

  Bing Crosby was dreaming of a White Christmas, and Nat King Cole sang about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Kendra pretended that wasn’t cool, but eventually sang along. And when the snow started falling, we stood on my deck and enjoyed it together. Kendra insisted we hear from Bing again. It was just my little girl and me and Mulch and the snow and the music. It was Christmas, and I didn’t want it to end and tried to stop reminding myself it would.

  We sat on the couch, her under her mom’s blue Seahawks blanket, me covered with Mulch. We reminisced about Christmases past and how her mom always loved watching It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart. Kendra opened a Target gift card from me and a scarf she’d never wear. I opened up a Best Buy gift card from her and a tie I’ll never wear. Our hearts overflowed with yuletide thanks.

  Kendra also gave me It’s a Wonderful Life on DVD, beaming in light of our remembrances, and one other gift. At first I thought it was a big red handkerchief. Then I saw it had a point and “Merry Christmas” embroidered on it in green letters.

  “Put it on, Dad.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  We watched Jimmy Stewart and laughed and cried and ate popcorn and talked about the movie and her job and her pregnancy and how she missed her mother and sister, all with a tray of rabbit food in front of us, Mulch wondering when the baby back ribs were coming, and me wearing an elf hat.

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 7:30 A.M.

  I sat in my UCLA Bruins sweatshirt in Carly Woods’s room at Adventist Medical Center. Her face was pale, eyes red. After their Christmas Eve celebration, at 3:00 a.m., when most bad things happen, she’d had a seizure.

  Janet and Jake insisted on stepping out of the room to grab something to eat. They took Carly’s boy, Finney. An empty Christmas stocking hung from the tray, which had a cup of ice water on it, surrounded by some wrapping paper and candy.

  “Want a Whitman’s Sampler?” Carly asked. I declined. “Milk Duds?” Shook my head. “You’re looking at my Whoppers, aren’t you?”

  “Okay,” I said, holding out my hand. She filled it.

  “What’d you get for Christmas?” I asked.

  “Some CDs and clothes, but best of all, books.” She pointed at the stack. They included a slipcased set of the Chronicles of Narnia and Perelandra, The Problem of Pain, and Mere Christianity.

  “A C. S. Lewis theme,” I said. I noticed there were no books by Bertrand Russell and decided he wasn’t a popular writer for people in hospitals.

  “Two were presents. I asked Dad to bring the rest. I wanted to reread them. The Problem of Pain is pretty relevant right now.” She smiled like she had no reason not to. “Have you read the Narnia stories?”

  “I saw the first movie.”

  “What’d you think of Aslan?”

  “What about him?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to meet him?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “He’s Jesus, you know.”

  “I was thinking of him as a lion. King, protector, defender of justice.”

  “He’s all that and more. Have you thought about the self-restraint and love it took for Aslan to let the witch and the evil creatures beat him up and shave him and kill him so he could take the punishment Edmund deserved?”

  I nodded.

  “The real King didn’t just die for Edmund. He died for me. And you.”

  “I never argue with young women in hospitals.”

  “I can take it. Argue with me.”

  “I’m glad you find comfort in it. But to me, it’s just a story.”

  “Some stories aren’t true. Some are. This one is.”

  I looked at her, wanting both to agree and to argue.

  “Let me read you something.” She picked up her copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and flipped back a few pages from the dog-ear.

  “When the Beavers first tell the children about Aslan, Susan asks this question:

  “Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

  “That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

  “Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

  “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

  “What does it mean that he’s not safe?” I asked.

  “For one thing,” Carly said, “I love Him, and I’m dying.” She laughed without a hint of cynicism. “He’s faithful, but not predictable. I know He loves me; I know I’ll go to heaven. I know the best is yet to come. But I also know that meanwhile, life here under the curse isn’t real easy.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “We can ask Him to take away pain and suffering and death, but for now it’s part of our lives. But He’s going to get rid of it, once and for all. I was reading this morning in Isaiah 25 … pass me my Bible, would you?”

  She took it with both hands, so frail I cringed. “I’ll read you three verses, where He’s talking about the new earth:

  On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

  “A banquet?” I asked. “Best meats? Finest wines?”

  “I thought that might get your attention.”

  “My grandmother, who was a church warden or something, never talked about feasts and wine. She just warned against gluttony and drunkenness.”

  “Right now I don’t have an appetite,” Carly said, “so I’m thinking about God swallowing up death forever and wiping away the tears. I can’t tell you what that means to me.”

  She reached her hand out. I held it, so delicate and fragile.

  She said, “I asked Mom and Dad to leave when you got here because I wanted to make you an offer.”

  “An offer?�
�

  “You probably don’t think I have much to offer right now, but really I do.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “If you want me to … I could say hi to Aunt Sharon for you.”

  “Carly, stop it.”

  “I could give her a hug for you.”

  “But … I mean.” I put my face in my right hand, still holding hers with my left. “Yeah. Hug Sharon for me.”

  “You know, you can go to heaven some day, Uncle Ollie. Then you can hug her yourself.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “The clock’s not ticking just for me,” she said. “You spend your life around dying people. You should know.”

  “You never give up on me, do you, Carly?”

  “Nope. Neither does Little Finn. Or Dad. I know I’m going to see Mom and Dad and Finney and Uncle Clarence there some day. I’m going to see Uncle Finney real soon, I think. And I really want to see you again too.” A little tear fell from one of her Bambi eyes. “I want to see you in heaven.”

  She squeezed my hand. There was no strength in me. But in that weak little hand I felt a superhuman strength.

  “You know what you need to do, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Trust. Believe. Accept. Confess. Repent.” I recited the checklist.

  “Wow.” She grinned. “Not bad.”

  “I can repeat what your dad’s been telling me for years. Doing it’s the problem.”

  “Why?”

  “Okay, if there’s a God and He loves you, then why are you … like this?”

  “Dying? It’s okay, you can say it.”

  “I don’t want to say it.”

  “I’ll say it. I’m dying. Can’t say it’s fun. I mean, I’d rather be playing tennis or at the mall. But then if I was, I wouldn’t be talking with you like this, would I? And I wouldn’t be spending hours with my parents every day. And I wouldn’t be seeing Mom and Dad care for Finney. Sad as I am about leaving my son behind, I know that soon I’ll be happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

  “You really believe that.”

  “I really do.”

  “Wish I could.”