The Canary List: A Novel

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Fifty

  he Vette, as he expected, had some juice to it, and he popped in and out of traffic, headed north on the Pacific Coast Highway, hills to his right, water left, the outline of Santa Catalina Island a smudge on the far horizon.

  Not much conversation.

  Crockett remembered taking Ashley out to Avalon on Santa Catalina. Best part for both of them was the glass-bottom boat tour.

  They passed the Malibu Lagoon State Beach, passed the turn off to Pepperdine. Still not much conversation.

  Thinking of Ashley always turned his thoughts to Julie.

  More often than not, he felt like a panting puppy around Julie, bouncing around, hoping she’d throw something for him to fetch. He couldn’t deny the sensation of an unrequited crush whenever he saw her, heard her, or looked at a photograph of her. During their marriage, she’d settled into an even friendship with him, with lukewarm romance. Plenty of nights she turned away from him, no matter how many candles he lit or how much he tried to please her during the day by accomplishing a list of chores. Maybe that’s why he always felt the pang. Because the balance of power had always been hers. She could live without him, but he couldn’t live without her.

  He felt a vibration in his back pocket. Crockett pulled out his phone. He answered. For the moment, he had a good cell signal along the highway.

  “Crockett,” he said.

  “Not good, Crockett,” Sarah Rinker said. “Investigators got a tip and went back to your house. They managed to finagle a search warrant and found a rag with blood on it under a bush in your backyard. They’re saying the blood type matches your neighbor … Nanna.”

  “That will get them looking for her, right?” Crockett said. He clenched the cell phone so hard that the edges of it hurt his palm.

  “It has them looking more seriously at you. The rag was wrapped around one of your steak knives. They know that because your prints are on it, and it matched the set in your kitchen. Your bail’s been revoked. It smells like a setup, so the best way to deal with it is to come to the office, and we’ll go together to turn yourself in. That’s what an innocent man would do.”

  Crockett swallowed hard. “Right.” He was aware that Mackenzie was on the passenger side, hearing all of his half of the conversation. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  “Where are you?”

  It was more important to get to Bright Lights to find out what Jaimie would tell him than to turn around and be back in jail that afternoon.

  Crockett lied. “Palm Springs. Long story. Don’t ask.”

  “That’s two hours, unless traffic is good.”

  “Best I can do.”

  “I’ll let them know and hold them off until then.”

  “Thanks.” He shook his head at the futility of his charade. Nothing was turning his way. Why wouldn’t he expect this trip to Bright Lights would go badly as well?

  “Crockett?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t do anything stupid here, okay?” Rinker said. “You’re out on bail, there’s been a warrant issued for you. There’s a chance I can keep you out on extended bail, but only if you play this straight. I’m sorry it’s happening like this, really. Let’s still hope Nanna is found alive. She’s your best alibi.”

  “Got it.” He couldn’t accept losing Nanna too. She had to be alive, despite the evidence to the contrary.

  “Don’t hang up,” she said. “There’s something else.”

  “Still here.”

  “Found out something you should know about Dr. Mackenzie. She is a member of a coven.”

  “I think I lost signal strength for a second,” he said. He kept his eyes straight ahead on the winding road. “Can you repeat that?”

  “Coven. You probably thought I said convent. No. Coven. C-O-V-E-N. As in a gathering of witches. It’s a little-known coven, based out of Santa Barbara. I’ll get Catfish working on finding out more. But in the meantime, make sure you get here as fast as you can.”

  “Of course,” Crockett said. “Be less than a couple of hours.”

  Fifty-One

  adelyne and Crockett leaned against a split-rail fence at the Bright Lights Center. Farther along the fence, Jaimie was talking to one of the horses, her face next to the horse’s head, and she rubbed the horse’s nose. She had motioned for them to join her, but Madelyne gestured for Jaimie to wait a moment longer.

  “I need to set things up a bit before you talk to Jaimie,” she said.

  “Sure.” He seemed distracted. She wondered what the cell-phone call had been about, just before they’d turned off the PCH up into the hills.

  “I am probably one of the few in my profession who take seriously the question of whether demons do exist, and if, indeed, some cases of instability or mental illness are because of demon possession. As a Catholic, I share this with you on a personal level. Professionally, I don’t discuss it, and if you take this elsewhere, I’ll deny we had this conversation. In the eyes of other professionals, my stance would undoubtedly result in a stigmatism of sorts, and I don’t want that to interfere with how I try to help the children in my care.”

  As Madelyne spoke, she found to her surprise that she wanted to touch Crockett’s face. His bruises barely hidden by makeup, the dark circles beneath eyes full of weary determination. A deep well of inescapable grief.

  Crockett was much taller than Madelyne. All she could see on his face was a thousand-yard stare, focused on where the hills and sky met behind her. Almost as if he wasn’t listening to her but thinking about something else.

  Without meeting her eyes, he spoke. “Are you saying you think that demons exist? Literally? Like swivel-the-head and projectile-vomit horror-movie stuff?”

  “Yes, I believe demons exist,” she said. “No, I don’t see it in a horror-movie kind of way.”

  Crockett shifted his eyes to hers. It still was impossible to read what he was thinking.

  “Witches and demons?” he finally asked.

  “There are those who worship demons,” she said. “So yes, I suppose some kinds of witches are part of it.”

  Crockett looked away again to resume the thousand-yard stare.

  “I’m not going to try to convince you of the existence of demons, okay? Consider what I’m saying from a theoretical point of view. Just like you’re reading the paper that I’m writing on the subject, if I can ever put together enough empirical data to actually present it for peer review. I’ll talk to you as if you have a theist worldview. That you believe in the existence of God. And soul.”

  Crockett met her eyes again. “I hope you won’t be offended if I tell you that I don’t. Believe in God. That I prefer the rational.”

  “Yes, the rational. Then you’re not that different from a lot of people who do believe in God. In their world, God and soul exist, but demons are part of the superstitions from the Middle Ages. They suggest that the demons Jesus cast out in the Gospels were just psychological afflictions, leaving them a rational faith with comfortable PowerPoint sermons to help them live better lives. Nothing mystical or frightening to confront.”

  “Nothing mystical or frightening for me, either.” Crockett shrugged. “What I believe is what I can see or measure. No God. No soul. And no demons.”

  “In a way, I think it’s that simple,” she said. “Yes, for you, there is just one realm, the physical. If that’s true, demons, as spiritual entities, do not exist. For me, there are two realms. Physical and spiritual. Two types of entities. Physical and spiritual.”

  “And, as you’re going to argue in your peer-reviewed paper,” Crockett said, eyes seeming to search hers now. “If there is another entity with God and angels, it’s difficult to deny that demons would exist. Much as some modern churches would prefer to ignore them.”

  She nodded. “If there are two realms, demons and angels are entities in one. Animals, plants in the other. As humans, we are the unique entity that exists in or straddles both realms.”

  “If you are saying that d
emons can and will enter or possess humans, then demons, too, straddle both worlds.”

  “At least you’re listening,” she said. “Demons only access the spiritual component of humans. Demons are not capable of acting on their own in the physical world.”

  “How about when they turn rooms into iceboxes during exorcisms? That’s just in movies?” He arched his brows, underlining his sarcasm.

  “You are verging on cavalier,” she said. “But I will answer you seriously anyway. If you did any research on exorcisms, you would read accounts by priests where one person will feel the room turn cold and, at the same time, another other will feel it warm up. One will smell, yes, sulphur, and the other will smell something totally different. In a peer-reviewed paper that tries to piece together the reality of a spiritual entity from the other realm trying to possess a human’s spiritual component, I would argue that the physicality of the room in this realm doesn’t change, but the perception of the observer does. Perceptions altered by demonic presence. And psychology is rich with other situations that reflect this in other situations. Different people will see the same event differently.”

  “Fair enough,” Crockett said. “I grew up churched. I know the Gospel accounts. Are you going to tell me that all the stories about demons are true? That there are no grounds to argue that some of those healed by Jesus had psychological afflictions?”

  “You are getting to the crux of this. I think of it as a pendulum. In the time of Christ, up to the end of the Middle Ages, everything was blamed on demons. Today, everything, at least in the Western world, is attributed to psychological afflictions. What if the truth is somewhere between those extremes? The Vatican’s chief exorcist suggests that only one in five thousand suspected demon possessions is actually a demon possession. But that’s still one real demon possession. And it makes a great playground for demons. In our society they can do as they please without fear. They are the ultimate stalkers, invisible because we ignore them.”

  “But demons don’t exist,” Crockett said.

  “If they did, their existence would give a lot of people hope,” she answered.

  He frowned.

  “If demons exist,” she said, “then God exists. As does the spiritual realm that offers us the ultimate hope in the face of death.”

  “Now it sounds like you are trying to proselytize.”

  She heard the bitterness in his voice and didn’t interrupt as he continued.

  “I hate phrases like ‘hope in the face of death.’ Death sucks away everything that matters. If you don’t believe me, hold the hands of someone who is dying. So how about we get to the reason you invited me out here. Like telling me what it is about Jaimie that links us to threats against us. You took Jaimie to a priest because you thought she was demon possessed, right?”

  “I don’t want to answer that.” She made herself look at him directly, suddenly feeling very still and focused. She didn’t want to betray this man, but it couldn’t be avoided. “Go to Jaimie, and then she’ll bring you to my office.”

  Fifty-Two

  aimie stood at the fence, in the shade of a huge oak tree. She was in jeans and a light blue jersey that made her look smaller than she was.

  “Mr. G,” Jaimie said. She hugged him hard.

  Crockett didn’t push away from the hug. He couldn’t help but think of Ashley. And of his dream. The girl in a yellow dress.

  “You’re okay?” he asked.

  “I’m okay,” she said, stepping back. “Thanks for helping me the night of the fire. With all this stuff that’s happened, I haven’t had a chance to say that yet. I’m sorry about the trouble it caused you. I didn’t mean it to happen. Your face too. I heard about that.”

  “Face doesn’t hurt,” he said. “Looks worse than it is.”

  Crockett refrained from rubbing his neck. Before leaving the house, he’d slipped on a shirt with a collar that hid most of the circular bruise around his neck. Nothing he’d been able to do about his face though.

  “There’s lots to talk about,” Crockett said, thinking about witches and demons. The information that Dr. Mackenzie was part of a coven, her trying to convince him that demons existed, Jaimie’s inexplicable involvement in all of it. “Dr. Mackenzie said we should meet her in her office.”

  “It’s there,” Jaimie said, pointing at the nearby building.

  He had the horn-rimmed video glasses folded up in his back pocket. He pulled them out and slipped them on, ready to press the button to start recording.

  “Let’s go,” Crockett said, turning to look squarely at her. “I’m looking forward to finding out what this is about.”

  Mackenzie was waiting for them on a couch in a room that looked like a library.

  Jaime pulled him through the doorway, taking both his hands. He caught a glimpse of someone moving toward him and tried to make a defensive move, but Jaimie held tight to his hands.

  The attacker’s arm came up from behind Crockett, around his neck. Crockett smelled stale cigarette smoke on the man’s clothes.

  Piercing pain followed. Centered in the widest part of his left buttock. The embrace held him for a couple of seconds as he arched away from the pain, gagging him with that solid grip around the throat.

  “Mr. G,” Jaimie said. “I’m sorry. It had to be like this.”

  The grip was released, the pain ending as abruptly as it had hit. Crockett whirled toward the doorway.

  He saw a man, slightly shorter than himself, watching Crockett with a neutral expression, holding a hypodermic needle.

  “Me again,” the man said. “Best you found a place to sit. Soon.”

  Crockett made a half turn toward Mackenzie. She was rising, her face a strange mixture of concern and concentration.

  She moved around the desk, rushing toward him.

  He tried to put up his arms to defend himself, but there was too much disconnect between brain command and the obedience he expected from his arms. His legs were going next. He felt himself begin to topple forward.

  Just before obliteration, he smelled the residue of lotion on Mackenzie’s skin, felt the softness of her embrace as he fell into her headfirst. There was only one word apt to describe her. What a witch, he began to tell himself, but couldn’t verbalize or finish the thought.

  All black after that.

  Fifty-Three

  clicking noise woke Crockett.

  He was on his back, beneath sheets, in natural light. He opened his eyes and saw that the sound came from the slow movement of a ceiling fan directly above him.

  Without moving any part of his body, he licked his lips, very aware of the throbbing in his head. However hung over he had been the morning after the arson, this was a magnitude worse on the Richter scale.

  Instead of sitting up, which he knew would be a disaster, he turned his head slowly sideways, moving his view from the ceiling to the end of the room. And saw a middle-aged man in a cassock, who sat in a straight-back chair between Crockett and a door.

  The man’s head was bowed, his face obscured by shadow. He was reading a Bible, held in both hands above his lap. Crockett saw the top of the man’s head and the monkish haircut on a balding head the size of a bowling ball. In his lap was a short black tube, with two silver pins at one end, a weapon that Crockett recognized because he confiscated one from a student once.

  A stun gun.

  He continued to look around. He was in a hotel room. Not Motel 6 style, but something much older. The ceiling was high, with ornate patterns in the white painted plaster. The chest of drawers was dark-colored wood, not cheap veneer. He was lying in a four-poster bed.

  Crockett closed his eyes. Clueless as to his location or to the reason he’d been abducted, he was obviously at an extreme disadvantage. At this point, the only advantage he could gain was in pretending that he was still unconscious, and even that probably wouldn’t do him any good.

  Crockett wasn’t a cop or spy, but it didn’t take much intelligence to identify step one. Assess the
immediate situation as well as he could.

  Silly as it seemed, he wondered first if he was dressed. So complete had his unconsciousness been, and so disoriented his awakening, it took a slight shifting of his arms against his body to determine he had been stripped to his underwear.

  He moved his legs slowly, didn’t feel any sense of binding or manacles.

  Eyes still closed, he gave it more thought.

  A priest, something familiar about the guy’s face. A priest armed with a stun gun. Implicitly, there should seem to be no real threat of bodily harm from a priest. So far, it didn’t seem like his captors wanted to harm him. Otherwise, of course, he wouldn’t even be having these thoughts. He’d be dead, disposed of during his unconsciousness. They just wanted him contained.

  Why a stun gun, not a pistol?

  Pistols killed, he decided. A stun gun only incapacitated.

  Another thought struck him. Stun guns were silent.

  Crockett thought it was unlikely that his abductors had sealed off an entire hotel floor. If there were other guests, shooting him would draw too much attention.

  Should he shout for help?

  No. Who would investigate? And if he started shouting, all the priest would need to do was take a few steps, jab Crockett with the stun gun. No more shouting.

  The silence for Crockett was eerie, especially with his eyes closed. He had no idea if the priest had lifted his head from the Bible and was looking at him.

  Weird, too, that it was a priest. Or maybe not so weird, considering all he’d learned in his investigations. He imagined Catfish rambling on about Vatican conspiracies. He’d love this situation.

  Crockett wondered if the man was waiting for Crockett to wake, to begin a conversation.

  He gave this possibility more thought and decided he liked the conclusion. The stun gun would keep Crockett compliant and at arm’s length. Lastly, by sitting between Crockett and the door, with that large space between the priest’s chair and Crockett’s bed, it ensured Crockett would not escape.