A Murder of Crows
Page 11
“You think people lie in their thoughts?” he asked.
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Come on, people prepare lies in their thoughts. In their hearts sometimes. Speaking a lie is the end product, that’s all.”
Decker heard far more than the words. A profound Z behind the Y that led to her statement. A rich subtext of pain was bolstering Special Agent Yslan Hicks’ statement. He changed tack. “How many of us are you tracking?”
“You’re not that special, Mr. Roberts.”
“How many?”
“More than thirty.”
Swirling lines—a lie. “That’s not true!” He turned to leave. Immediately guards stepped forward to block his way. These were the marines he’d seen at the front of the building. When had they come in?
Decker turned back to her. “Where are Ted Knight and Mr. T?”
“Around,” she said.
“At least that’s the truth. So spit it out, Special Agent Yslan Hicks; what do you want from me here?”
“Start by telling us which, if any, of Viola Tripping’s recitations are true.”
“If I can.”
“You’d better.”
“Or what?”
She hesitated, then said simply, “Or I won’t tell you where your son, Seth, is.”
Decker couldn’t find words to reply.
Yslan said nothing. She just pointed toward the heavy metal door that led to Viola Tripping’s windowless room.
“And after I finish will you—”
She took a key from her pocket and reached for the door.
Decker stared at her. “You locked her—”
“She wants it that way.”
35
A READING OF MINDS—T MINUS 6 DAYS
VIOLA
The light from the open door is behind him, and—his silhouette—his death shroud—surprises me. It has such depth and pulses in the light. Never seen a death shroud like that. The door shuts behind him and someone turns the key. He lurches at the handle and tries to pull the door open. It won’t open—it’s locked. Good.
Then he doubles over and almost falls.
DECKER
The door’s locked. The room has no windows! No fucking windows! The small figure across the way takes a step toward me. I’m falling—down a well, backward, at night—fuck, I’m going to vomit, but I don’t. I look up at her. So small—so very small and fragile. And I stand. I don’t feel any nausea at all.
“Why don’t I feel—”
“Sick?” the small creature asked.
“Yeah.”
“Cause I’m not a pukerator to you or you to me. We’re through the great woods. We’re in the clearing—the others are lost in the woods unable to find the path to the clearing. But we are together in the clearing. Don’t you know that? We’re not at the glass house yet, but we’re looking for it.”
Decker shook his head, trying to rid it of random thoughts that were whizzing back and forth—clearing? great woods? glass house?—but he asked, “Pukerator?”
“Pukerators make people like you and me puke—pukerators. But you and I are in the clearing in the middle of the great woods so we don’t make each other sick.”
DECKER
In the clearing? I remember the profound nausea I felt when I was near Mike Shedloski and that guy Emerson Remi—and the admonition years ago from the pianist, Paul Scheel: “Your forest will infect mine.”
“Those lost deep in the forest who can sense the clearing but can’t find the path to it—”
“Make those of us in the clearing sick?”
“Right.”
DECKER
Two worlds out of alignment.
He closed his eyes—cold surrounded him—two perfect cubes.
VIOLA
How funny he doesn’t know that—I thought all of us in the clearing knew that. He’s holding up a hand.
DECKER
Don’t come closer, I tell her.
VIOLA
Why? I ask him.
DECKER
I shriek, Don’t!
VIOLA
I retreat to a far corner of the room and make myself even smaller than I usually am. He draws his sleeve across his mouth.
“Why have they locked you—”
“They haven’t locked me anywhere. I need to be in enclosed spaces.”
“You’re an agoraphobic?”
“Big word.”
“Frightened of open spaces?” She didn’t answer, so Decker asked again. “Are you frightened of open spaces?”
VIOLA
I shake my head. My hair falls across my face. I like my hair across my face.
“Then what?” Decker demanded.
“I like the dark. I like closed spaces.”
“Like Tourette’s?”
“No, I’m not sick and neither are you.”
VIOLA
Then I stop speaking.
DECKER
She’s holding back.
She turned her face to the wall. “And?” Decker demanded.
“And?”
“Come on, and what?”
“And . . .”
VIOLA
I hesitate. I’ve never told anyone before, but his death shroud is so unique, so deep, so pulsing . . .
“And . . . in a closed room I know there’s no portal.”
DECKER
It stuns me. I never thought of it that way before. Portals—I know of the one in Houston at the Rothko Chapel and I sensed I was near one in Namibia.
“How many portals have you seen?”
“None.”
“What? None? You’ve never seen a portal?”
“Once I see the hanging boy, I run.”
“What?”
“The hanging boys. They mark the portals. Haven’t you seen them?”
“No. But I’ve sensed the portals.”
DECKER
Why can this creature see the hanging boys but not the portals? And where was the hanging boy in Houston? But before I can think about my own question I know the answer. Mark Rothko was the hanging boy—his suicide was his hanging boy.
VIOLA
Then I’m screaming, “No more, no more, no more.”
DECKER
I put up my hand. I understand, even talking about the portals is panicking this strange creature. Then Special Agent Hicks’ words, “one of your kind,” slide through my consciousness and other words float up in my head. My daughter—this girl is my daughter.
“Have you worked for the NSA before?”
“Who?”
“For Special Agent Yslan Hicks?”
“Funny name. Pretty lady.”
“Have you worked for her before?”
“Worked?”
“Been with. Helped?”
“No. Pretty lady.”
VIOLA
Then I stand and turn slowly with my arms out like when I speak for the dead—when I am awake and dreaming at the same time. When I do I always float in my dreams—arms wide, upside down and spinning, the tips of my long hair just brushing the ground while my waking self has arms wide and spinning but my feet are on the ground—like I’m spinning now.
DECKER
She is turning slowly, almost elegantly, and somehow she’s older and taller and incredibly beautiful, her hair now long to her waist, her smile so intense it seems to light the room and draw me to her. And then I am spinning, with her, and old—we are both so old, like ancient trees on Vancouver Island, then he is there, Seth getting into his wet suit—and crying, oh, Jesus he’s crying—his hands to his face, tears squeezing through his fingers. Then her hands are on my face.
“Don’t cry. He’s just on another path. Just another path.”
DECKER
The same words Crazy Eddie had used to describe his wife’s ALS all those years ago.
36
A FOLDER OF FILES—T MINUS 6 DAYS
&
nbsp; DECKER DIDN’T EXACTLY REMEMBER LEAVING VIOLA TRIPPING. Somehow the door opened and a marine or two were there—he was confused—and he found himself, before he knew it, in Yslan’s small makeshift office.
Yslan looked up as he entered. “Are you okay? You look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“Want to tell me how it went with Viola Tripping?”
“No. Want to tell me where my son is?”
“When this is done. Okay?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I get that.”
“Good.”
“Why bother asking me how it went with Viola Tripping; you had the place wired, surely.”
“Naturally.” Yslan stepped to one side and pointed at the photographs on the table. “I need you to see this.”
“This is the best—”
“Yes.” She didn’t bother mentioning the work Homeland Security was doing on the photographs. “Some parent at the very back of the graduation tent took this shot two and a half minutes before the first blast.”
“Surely every parent had—”
“No. The college forbids photographs during the graduation.”
“So the parents have to buy the video the school shot?”
“Yeah.”
“So where’s the video?”
“It was destroyed in the blasts.”
“Completely?”
“Yeah.”
“Wasn’t there a wireless feed to a hard drive?”
“You’d think, but they were economizing.”
“This country’s excuse for everything.”
“Be that as it may.”
“So, all you have is this photograph of the faculty members on the stage waiting for the ceremony to start? How could you ID them from that?”
“We have our ways.”
Decker didn’t like the smile on Yslan’s face.
Yslan handed him a large folder containing an outline of the achievements of each of the dead faculty members. Each had his or her own file within the folder. Several had red dots in the right-hand corner of the folder. Two had blue dots.
“What’s with the dots?”
“Red means they had highest security clearance.”
“And the blue?”
“Those considered potential security risks.”
Decker looked at her. “You mean they were commies or something?”
“Let’s leave it at ‘or something.’ ”
“I thought the McCarthy trials ended long ago.”
“You have a problem with the McCarthy trials, Mr. Roberts?”
“Every thinking person has a problem with that little part of American history.”
“Why’s that?”
“A lot of innocent people got hurt for no goddamned good reason.”
“Really? You don’t think that Stalin, a man who was willing to kill thirty million of his own people, was a potential threat? And he had the bomb, at least in part thanks to the work of the Rosenbergs, which is a fact that the released KGB files confirm. Those same files, by the by, also confirm that Alger Hiss was, as Senator McCarthy claimed, a Russian spy.”
“Paranoia,” Decker snapped back.
Yslan threw a wide-angle shot of the carnage at the graduation on the table. “Is that paranoia too?”
It was the first time Decker had seen the devastation caused by the bombs. It took his breath from him. He pushed the photo aside, picked up the files with the précis of the professors, and said, “Mark the professors’ names beside the chairs they were sitting on and Viola and I can—”
“Yeah, when we have that information each chair will be numbered. The number will correspond to those on the top of each of the files.”
“Is the site secured?” Decker asked.
“Not yet. It’ll take some time. In the meanwhile”—she pointed toward a laptop—“start with these.” She pressed two keys and the paused image of a very frightened swarthy-skinned man came up. She tossed Decker a thick yellow pad and a pen, turned, and left.
37
A PILE OF JUNK—T MINUS 6 DAYS
TWO HOURS LATER DECKER TOOK THE HANDKERCHIEF FROM HIS pocket and dabbed at his eyes. As he did he noticed that his hand was shaking. It was doing that more and more since he’d returned from Namibia.
The door opened and Yslan entered. He handed her his notes.
Another taped interview came on the screen. He tapped his pen against the pad and waited. Finally he said, “I don’t need to see these opening questions. I don’t need a baseline like some kinesics person. Just cut to the chase. Ask them if they had any knowledge of or participated in any way in the bombing at Ancaster College.”
“Yeah, well.” Yslan paused. “We didn’t know that, so you’re going to have to sit through the entire thing.”
“How many have I done?”
“Twenty-one so far.”
“How many are there?”
“So far they’ve completed two hundred and seventy.”
“And how many are they going to do?”
“As many as they need to, Mr. Roberts.”
“Give me a ballpark figure.”
“Say six hundred, give or take three hundred.”
Decker let out a low whistle then said, “Next.”
Yslan said, “Enough for now. Get your coat.”
“Why?”
“We’re going on a field trip.”
* * *
The low-hanging sun’s light glinted off the windshield as Yslan sped the government-issued Buick through the upper New York State countryside.
“I thought I was here to help with Viola Tripping.”
Yslan tipped down her sunglasses so her translucent blue eyes were staring right into Decker’s. “You’re here to do whatever the fuck we want you to do.” She flipped back up her sunglasses and turned left without bothering to signal.
“Well, that’s fair.”
“Try to get it through your head that you work for us.”
“I don’t work for anyone.”
Mr. T, who was sitting behind him in the backseat of the car, grunted some sort of response, then moved a heavy duffel bag on the seat beside him. Then he grunted again.
Decker turned to look at him. “I knew I shouldn’t have given you that dictionary.”
“What?” Mr. T said.
“Lenny Bruce.”
“Who?”
“Never mind.”
“Enough, Mr. Roberts. Think of it as you’re on our team.”
“I’m not on your team—or any team.”
“Not even Seth’s team?”
“That’s subtle.”
“More than two hundred people are dead; I’ve had it with subtle. Get it?”
“Yeah. I got it.”
“I hope they’ll have made the site safe for you and Ms. Tripping soon.”
“Okay. So where are we going now?”
“To a junkyard.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Shut up.”
“More subtlety.”
“You’re just here to tell us whether this guy’s lying.”
“I only know when someone’s telling the truth. Got it?”
“Yeah, I get that. But as I said, from here on in you shut up.”
The rest of the drive was done in silence. The rolling countryside was recovering from yet another harsh winter. Beneath some of the trees and in the depths of some of the ditches there were still patches of snow and ice locked in the brown leaves.
As they drove away from the college, things changed—rural, impoverished America reasserted itself on the landscape. Those who had been left out of the economic miracle, who watched on their TVs the lives of others. Decker felt for them and was appalled by them: their overarching religiosity, their clannishness, and their deep distrust of “city folks”—read liberals.
The junkyard was right on the side of the road. Nothing but a cheap chain-link fence separated it from the blacktop—
and, oh yes, there were two snarling German shepherd guard dogs. B film here we come. Then right out of central casting, a grizzled overalled man in his late twenties or early fifties—it was hard for Decker to tell—shooed away the dogs and opened the gate for them. He turned his back and walked through the piles of junk to the north side of his lot. He stopped in front of what used to be the front seat of a Subaru.
“So, on the phone you said you wanted to show me something.”
Mr. T unzipped the heavy duffel bag he’d been carrying and dumped the contents on the ground. Maybe two hundred pounds of metal scrap.
“Could this have come from your yard, Mr. Johnston?” Yslan asked.
“Johnson, not Johnston.”
“Sorry,” Yslan said. “Could this have come from your yard, Mr. Johnson?”
“Is this from that—”
“Just answer my question, Mr. Johnson.”
“Sure. It could have. It also could have come from somewhere or anywhere else, too.”
“Do you sell—” Yslan didn’t complete her question because Johnson pointed behind her to a pile of metal scrap perhaps nine feet tall and twenty feet in diameter.
Yslan blinked back her surprise then asked, “Have you sold any of it—”
“Lately? Nah. Business is bad.”
Yslan looked at Decker. He opened his eyes and asked, “May I speak?”
“Sure.”
“He’s telling the truth but—”
“Thank you, Mr. Johnson.”
“Sure,” he said and spat out something viscous and brown that had been in his cheek.
As Mr. T packed up the metal scraps Yslan turned to go. Decker caught up to her. “Can I speak again?”
“That guy was telling the truth. Right?”
“Yeah, but only to that question.”
“What?”
“Ask him if he’s ever sold some of that scrap.” Yslan stopped and looked at him. “Then ask him if he remembers the last person who bought scrap metal from him. Then ask if he knows that person’s name. Your questions have to be precise for me to help you. This works best if there’s a simple progression.” Before Yslan could question that, he added, “Don’t ask me why.”
She turned and headed back toward the trailer where they’d first seen Johnson. As they approached the dogs began to growl.
Johnson stepped out of the trailer. “Now what?”
“People come here sometimes to buy scrap metal?”