The Edge of Reason

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “I have a job. I’m busy, and she doesn’t talk to me—”

  “Because you’re always so damned unsympathetic,” Richard snapped.

  “Yes, yes, I am, because her problems are so damn trivial!” his sister shot back.

  Richard gave a hiss of frustration. “I don’t even know why I bothered. I knew you’d be like this—”

  “I wish you’d figured that out before you called and woke me up. I’m going back to sleep now, Richard. Good-night.”

  He forced himself to release his death grip on the cell phone, and shoved it back into his pocket.

  Kenntnis padded into the room. The strings on the piano and the Celtic harp gave a ghost of sound as he entered the room. He settled onto the bench of the new addition to the furnishings, a Steinway grand piano. Richard knew it had been bought for him. It didn’t change the resentment he felt toward Kenntnis. Richard glanced over at Kenntnis, then returned to his rapt contemplation of the boulders.

  “Send Angela,” Kenntnis suddenly said.

  Richard cranked around in his chair. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Send Angela to check on your mother.”

  “I haven’t seen Angela since the latest … psychodrama, and I really don’t want to have to go into another humiliating explanation.”

  “You think she doesn’t know? Cops are the biggest gossips in the world, at least with each other. She’s the coroner and she’s popular.”

  “What if she reacts like Weber?”

  “Then you get hurt again, but I’d at least try.” Kenntnis rested his hands on his knees and levered himself to his feet.

  They sat in a booth at the Carrow’s. The median age had shifted from sixteen to sixty-five since Angela’s last visit. Older women, with crimped red or silver hair, wearing gaudy silver- and gold-trimmed fiesta skirts, sat with their husbands, who wore white shirts and black trousers and bolo ties. It was a square dance club, pausing for dinner after cutting a rug at the senior center up the street. They were a good deal more restrained than the high school football team, fans and cheerleaders, but one old guy insisted on reeling out a call while banging on the edge of the plastic table with his spoon.

  “ … so, there it is. I have no idea how my father might react to you showing up. Mama would be fine.” Angela noted that Richard gave the word a French pronunciation. “But I’d have someone there. I … I know it’s incredibly presumptuous of me to ask—”

  “Of course I’ll do it,” Angela interrupted. “My dad’s family is still in Philadelphia. I’ll tell your folks you asked me to bring their Christmas presents by since I was coming out east anyway. Then I’ll conveniently come down with the flu and have to stay. Or if things are fine, and you are being paranoid, I’ll head back.”

  He touched her hand lightly and withdrew. “Thank you.”

  “By the way, I don’t give a shit that you’re bi.”

  He flinched at her bluntness. “I do,” he said shortly. “And do you really want to be known as a ‘fag hag’?”

  “Hey, not everyone thinks that’s an insult.” She took a sip of her coffee. “I presume you’re HIV negative?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I really don’t have a problem. We’ve just got to get past your problems. So, what are your problems?”

  His fingers clutched at his hair, disturbing the perfect part. “Angela, please, I really can’t take a session of tough love, or whatever the heck you want to call it, right now.”

  “Fine.” She stood up. “How about we meet tomorrow noon in Old Town? We’ll pick out some quaint and exotic Indian tchotchkes for your family.”

  The crowds in Andrew’s Pueblo Pottery were shoulder to shoulder as people dashed to buy Christmas gifts. Angela wriggled through and finally found Richard in rapt contemplation of a Hopi kachina Snow Maiden and a San Juan Pueblo Corn Maiden carved out of a delicate seashell. His hand were folded on the counter, chin resting on his hands as he studied them at eye level.

  “I don’t know which one she’d like better,” he said as she joined him.

  Angela took in a deep breath, struggled with how to say it, then settled for her usual bluntness. “Richard, I’ve got to go to Farmington. Some roughnecks digging a containment pit for a new natural gas well found a body dump. The coroner in San Juan can’t handle this. I’ve been called in.” The expression on his face pushed her to say more. “Look, it should only be a few days’ delay. As soon as I can, I’ll head east.”

  Richard slowly straightened, and pushed the Snow Maiden toward the clerk. “I’ll take her.”

  “Richard, she’s three grand,” Angela said, then stopped at his look.

  It seemed to have become all about food. Rhiana forced herself to set down the fork and contemplate the view across the water. Not that the water could be seen. This late in the year the canals and lagoon of Venice were hidden beneath swirling white fog, and the buildings floated like pastel dreams on billows of mist. It was beyond description beautiful, but the food …

  Rhiana returned to her Venetian specialty, calves liver in a delicate wine and mushroom sauce. “I’m sorry,” she said between bites. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” The kerosene heaters dotted about the balcony hissed and warmth rolled off them. The scent of brine and the faintest whiff of sewage rose off the water. Voices called from the enshrouded buildings, the sound amplified by the fog and water. The liquid Italian syllables were like music.

  Madoc smiled at her and sipped his wine. “It’s all about sensation. You’re compensating with physical feeding instead of feeding your magic. You should feed the magic.”

  She had a sudden image of Cross looking at her … looking through her. Her appetite deserted her. Rhiana pushed away the plate. “Kenntnis would find out. Cross would sense what I’d done,” she whispered. “Unless I left,” she added hopefully.

  “Not yet. We went to a deal of trouble to place you there.”

  “Why?”

  “Soon,” Madoc said soothingly.

  Rhiana couldn’t resist the food. She pulled the plate back. “Do you actually look like,” she gestured with her knife, “this?”

  “No, I’m wearing a mask on a mask.”

  “I don’t understand,” Rhiana said.

  There was a strange rippling as if Madoc were made of water and she found herself looking into the round face and brown eyes of a cute but ordinary looking young man who wore blue jeans and sneakers and whose backpack rested against the legs of his chair. “This is what Kenntnis’s spies see.”

  “He watches me?” Her voice rose in indignation.

  “Of course.”

  “Cross can see through that,” she waved her fork at him.

  “Which is why we neutralized him while you and I are … getting to know one another.”

  “Then that shape you show me?”

  “Isn’t real either. I tried to make myself attractive. Your mother thought I was.”

  “You are. So you wanted to be attractive to human women?”

  “Yes,” he answered simply.

  “Why?”

  “We needed a half-breed.”

  “Every theory suggests that aliens and humans would be sterile,” Rhiana said.

  “Yes, but we are masters at manipulating matter, particularly DNA. We want children, we get them.”

  “But you haven’t done it in a long time.” Please, don’t take away the specialness. She couldn’t control the pathetic little thought.

  “Actually we have, but you may be what we’ve been seeking.”

  “And what is that?”

  “A melding of technological understanding and magic.”

  “And I’m that melding?” she asked.

  “We think so. We hope so. We arranged for your scholarship to see if you truly had the aptitude.”

  “And sent me to UNM?” Rhiana scoffed. “Not exactly the physics capital of the world.”

  “No, but close to Kenntnis.”

  “Oh,” she said, no longer
feeling clever. “So, how will you know? If I’m the one?”

  “When you go back, take a hard look at Kenntnis. Beyond the physical. Tell me what you see. That will answer the question of whether we’ve succeeded or not.” Madoc reached out and stroked his hand down her cheek caressingly. “I hope you are. I want my child to be the one.”

  “You impotent fucker!”

  Even Richard shrank back, and he was prepared for the roar. The suspect seemed to be trying to push his spine through the back of the wooden chair. He was a skinny man with a protuberant Adam’s apple, pasty pockmarked skin and mud-colored eyes. Sparse hair had been carefully combed across a wide bald spot. Torres slammed his hands down on the arms of the chair, penning the man. The cop’s blood-congested face was only inches from the pale sweating face of the perp.

  “You can’t fuck a woman normally so you hurt ’em and then kill ’em!” Torres allowed spit to fly from his mouth into Cobb’s face.

  As the saliva struck his skin Randall Cobb let out a whistling squeak. It was what they had been waiting for. Richard flung himself forward, wrapped his arms around Torres’s chest and pulled the older man away from Cobb.

  “Back off, back off, man!” Richard said urgently.

  The broad one-way mirror gave back their reflections. The interrogation room stank with years of fear-induced sweat. The acoustic tile ceiling was a dingy white, but in one corner the tiles were stained brown as if something had died in the crawl space and bled through.

  Torres roughly shook off Richard’s hands and stormed out of the room. Richard pulled a starched handkerchief from his pocket, crossed to Cobb, offered the cloth. Grimacing with distaste, the man wiped the spittle from his face. But his hand was shaking.

  “I apologize for that,” Richard said.

  “He’s a barbarian. Uncouth. Uneducated.” Richard looked sympathetic.

  The legs of the chair scraped across the stained and scratched linoleum as Richard pulled over a chair and sat down. “Look, Mr. Cobb … Randall. May I call you Randall?” The man nodded, his gaze suspicious. “Just answer a few of our questions and you’ll be out of here. I don’t really think you had anything to do with this woman. I can tell you’re a man of taste and refinement, and she was … well … .” Richard shrugged and tried not to think about the woman’s body so he could remain sympathetic. “But my partner is nervous. He needs an arrest. As long as you don’t talk to him you give him a reason to suspect you.” Cobb began to relax, twining the handkerchief through his fingers. There were tufts of coarse dark hair on the joints and the knuckles were enlarged. Richard swallowed his disgust and leaned in closer. “So, why don’t we talk? If you talk to me he doesn’t have to come back in.”

  “Okay.”

  “So where were you Thursday night around nine-thirty?”

  The intercom came on with a hiss and click. “Detective, you have a phone call.”

  Richard’s back teeth closed with an audible snap, for the wariness was back in Cobb face and he’d subtly withdrawn.

  “Not now,” he called back.

  “They said it was urgent.”

  Richard looked down at Cobb and gave him the most warm and charming smile he could muster. “Excuse me just one moment. I’m very sorry.”

  Slipping out the door, Richard found Lucile waiting. “We told you we weren’t to be disturbed!” Richard snapped. Torres was hustling down the hall, his brow thunderous.

  Lucile looked guilty and defensive. “They said it was a family emergency, Rich. The woman on the phone, she was crying,” she added.

  Torres arrived in time to hear part of Lucile’s remark. “You gotta take it. Go. I’ll keep him softened up.”

  “He’s ripe now. I’m afraid we’re going to overplay it,” Richard fretted.

  “We’ve already broken the mood,” Torres answered. “We can only do the best we can.” He went through the door into the interrogation room.

  Richard heard Cobb say, “You!” in a tone of loathing. “I want a lawyer … .” The closing door cut off any further words. Richard, raging inwardly, followed Lucile back into the main squad room.

  “I’ll forward it to your desk,” Lucile said.

  He grabbed up the phone on the first ring. “Oort!” he snapped.

  “Richard.” It was Pamela and she was crying.

  The shock froze him. In all the years of childhood Pamela had never cried. Not when she broke her arm when she was eleven. Not when Zorro, the family poodle, died; not when her boyfriend, the captain of the tennis team, dumped her two days before the senior prom. Never.

  “It’s Mama. She’s dead.”

  His head seemed to be ringing. The words kept repeating over and over in his mind as if the brain could not reach understanding. He didn’t seem to have the breath to form words.

  “Did you hear me?” Pamela said, and her basic nature reasserted itself, sharpening her tone even through the tears. “Mama has died!”

  I should have gone! My fault! I should have gone! They killed her and I did nothing!

  “Yes … yes.” His voice was trembling. It spread to his limbs and Richard groped for the chair before his legs collapsed. “How … what … happened?”

  “She committed suicide,” Pamela said, her voice thick with shame and anger. “Come home.” She hung up.

  That revelation shook his certainty of Grenier’s involvement. Slowly Richard replaced the receiver in the cradle. His mother had been fragile since Pamela’s birth. Postpartum depression, the doctors had said, and recommended that the Oorts not have any more children. But they had tried again for that elusive and necessary son. The son who had let her down.

  Logic whispered all the rational explanations, and couldn’t trump his certain knowledge. Kenntnis would never approve, but Richard knew that Grenier was behind this suicide.

  Finally the reality penetrated. His mother was dead. Hands clasped tightly between his thighs, Richard leaned forward and tried to fight back the tears. They won, but he did manage not to make a sound.

  Her hands on his shoulders helping him stay upright as he learned to skate on the pond at the Vermont cabin. Curled up in his bed, chest hot and reeking with Vicks mentholated rub, the down comforter and feather pillows forming a cocoon while she read The Wind in the Willows. Her bell-like laughter breaking up the words as she read of Mr. Toad’s delight on having seen his first motorcar. Leaning across the table in the big kitchen to hand him a beater covered with chocolate batter from his birthday cake, her gray eyes warm and sparkling. Teaching him to waltz before he became an escort at the debutante ball. Turning the pages of his sheet music as he practiced before a concert.

  “Ah, itty boo Richie’s crying.” And the ring of phones and smell of old burned coffee and damp clothes, and microwave popcorn was back. “What happened, Richie? Your boyfriend got AIDS? Or is it you?” The words, delivered in Snyder’s nasal tones, added to the ugliness and sarcasm.

  It wasn’t a conscious decision. Suddenly Richard was moving, leaping up so abruptly that the chair went skittering and squealing across the floor. He rested one hand on his desk and vaulted across to land in front of his tormentor. Files flew off the desk like startled birds breaking from cover.

  He watched his fist slicing through the air, smashing into Synder’s nose. The mushy feeling followed by the crunch of cartilage giving way. The nose flattening and slipping sideways, the blood cascading hot and sticky across Richard’s knuckles, staining the front of Snyder’s shirt.

  Snyder went down hard, landing on his butt, hands clasped across his face. Arms grabbed Richard and held him back. There was a confused babble of voices all around, but it was just sound, not words.

  Then the captain was there. Richard, and half of downtown, heard his words. “What in the fuck is going on?!”

  Richard twitched his shoulders and was released. Because of the broken nose Synder’s words were thick and phlegmy. “I was just askin’ what was wrong, and he attacked me.”

  While Snyder sp
un out his bullshit Richard removed the handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped away the blood. He straightened his suit coat, and smoothed out the wrinkles on the sleeves where sweating hands had gripped him.

  “Is that true?”

  Richard turned to face Ortiz. “I need to take personal leave, sir. My mother has died.”

  All the excited chatter, query and commentary died. One of the other cops muttered out of the corner of his mouth to Snyder. “Smooth, dude, very smooth.”

  “You hit a fellow officer. I can’t just ignore that.” Richard shook his head, refusing to answer. Ortiz opened his mouth, but before he could respond rescue came from an unexpected source.

  Lucile sailed across the squad room, her enormous bosom separating the gathered crowd like the prow of an icebreaker. “Captain, sir, as far as I’m concerned Rich should have hit this pendejo days ago. Snyder’s been accidentally,” she made quote marks in the air, “spillin’ coffee all over Rich’s reports and then hoggin’ the printer so Rich has to stay late. And sayin’ things.”

  Again Ortiz started to speak, only to be struck dumb by Lucile’s forefinger. It was tipped with a long bloodred nail set with a rhinestone. She wagged it under his nose. “And you know the kinds of things. You’re not on another planet when you’re in that office. And if hittin’ a fellow officer is against the rules then discriminating against one ought to be, too. You’re damn lucky Rich didn’t bring in his delegate or file a lawsuit.”

  She folded her arms across her breast and glared at Ortiz, and such was the complexity of male and female relationships in Hispanic culture that he wilted.

  “You should have said something, Oort,” the captain muttered. He rounded on Snyder and the clip of command was back in his voice. “Snyder, I’ll see you in my office.”