And the Tide Turns

by Timothy Dalton

  “I know what you mean, Captain.” Ethan picked up Uncle Tobias’s keychain, rubbing a thumb gently across the emblem. “I just want to be kept in the loop – on everything.” It wasn’t until after he said the words that he realized they sounded more like a demand than a request, but Ethan didn’t care.

  “I’m not liking your newfound tone with me, detective,” Fredericks said, as though Ethan’s title could be stripped from him at any moment. “Everybody’s lost someone along the way; just because you think you live in a wake of death doesn’t mean you’ve cornered the market on sorrow.”

  “I’ll send a card with an apology, or we can hold hands and go to therapy later.” Ethan dropped the keys back on the bedside table. They clanked against the empty glass.

  “Watch it Ethan – or so help me, your bereavement could become a suspension. It won’t look good on my record or in your file, but I’ll do what it takes to keep my department under control.”

  “Well, it looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed at the old folk’s home this morning.”

  Fredericks’ breathing grew heavy. The man was near seventy years and possessed a deadly combination of quick temper and high blood pressure. Ethan knew his own short fuse this morning was only making matters worse. This was not the time to make an old folks jibe. He decided to switch gears – maybe it was the headache or the latest episode of Donahue he’d seen – and went with appeasement.

  “Look, Cap – I’m just asking to be kept informed. I’m not sure why that’s a problem.”

  “I don’t have a problem keeping you apprised of information, Tannor,” Fredericks said. “But I do have a problem with an armed detective who may or may not be of sound and stable mind hitting the streets.” His voice escalated as he spoke. “So it would be in your best interest if you took a few days to let things simmer down.”

  “Sounds like a threat, Captain.”

  “What the fuck makes you think it wasn’t? Take two days!” Fredericks bellowed.

  The line buzzed in Ethan’s ear. So much for appeasement.

  “That went well,” Ethan grumbled as he slid his feet out of bed. He sat for a moment with his hands pressed deep into his eye sockets trying to push the migraine away. “Take two days,” Fredericks had said. He’d take two Tylenol instead.

  He stood up, stretching to his full height of six feet three inches, and blew out a long-awaited exhalation. Maybe if he’d had a chance to do that before Fredericks called, the discussion would have gone better. He scratched his head, raked his fingers through his hair, and then shuffled to the bathroom like his joints were filled with setting cement. He set about ending the horrible account of morning breath that last night’s whiskey had caused and then stripped for a shower.

  Later, he downed three cups of coffee while skimming through the paper and catching a few snippets of news on TV. Top coverage consisted of another bill under debate in Congress and some miracle pill getting ready to hit the market. He switched off the television when coverage of his uncle’s death came up.

  This was no time for idle hands. He would take these two days to start looking into his uncle’s death. Why would Tobias do that to himself? He always seemed so capable in life, and health-wise, he’d generally taken care of himself.

  The image of Tobias’s pale, emaciated body surfaced in Ethan’s mind. He’d never remembered his uncle looking so ill. Yeah, Tobias was dead at the time, but that wasn’t it. Not only had there been an unusual pallor to the skin, but the body’s muscle mass and density was near nothing, the eye sockets abnormally sunken in above dark circles of flesh. Tobias’s hair had thinned dramatically since Ethan had seen him last, and his scraggily beard was … well, more unkempt than usual. It seemed Tobias had eliminated all normal grooming routines from his day. What had happened to cause the sudden degradation in health?

  Ethan walked over to the large window that displayed the cityscape in all its glory – the sun gleaming against thousands of skyscraper windows. The vista was breathtaking from this height, but once you got down to street level it was a different. Every speck of grime and trash was evident, the gang symbols spray painted against any flat surface made it known that unruly people were running the place, and around every corner predators waited for an opportunity to pounce.

  Someday, Ethan hoped, this city would be different; he prayed it would happen in his lifetime. Turning from the window, he looked at the phone and answering machine in the corner. The light was still blinking, reminding him of the two messages that had yet to be played.

  Just play and delete. No sense putting it off any longer. He moved to the machine and pressed the button with the triangle emblem. The tape rewound itself with a high-pitched whine and stopped as it came to the last message that was left. There was silence for a couple of dragging seconds, and then Art’s voice came through:

  “Hey buddy … I know today was a rough one. I just wanted to check in. If you need anything, give me a buzz; Mary’s offering the spare bedroom if you’d like some company. You can stay as long as you want. Fredericks is working us hard so this gets wrapped up quick. I asked Marek Bagowski for a rush job on the ballistics and blood work, so maybe we’ll hear something soon. I’m pulling an all-nighter; if you need to get in touch, I’ll be at the station. Don’t hesitate to call. Anyway – I know I’m rambling. Take care of yourself, brother.”

  Ethan couldn’t help but notice that Arthur had called him brother. It was true, over the years they’d developed a comfortable rapport, almost like siblings. It was nice to know he wasn’t totally alone; that Art had his back meant more than Ethan could express.

  The sound of static signaled the end of Art’s message. Ethan pressed rewind until the tape stopped at the beginning of the reel. It took a while for the recording to play, and he started to think the caller had hung up once they’d heard the greeting. He started to turn off the machine, but stopped when a crackling sound burst out, as if whoever had been on the phone dropped the receiver and was struggling to get it back into position. Ethan heard labored breathing and then a recognizable voice broke through the silence:

  “Ethan … it’s Tobias. I know this isn’t the way you would have preferred to hear this, but … I’m very sick … and I won’t get better.”

  A pause while Tobias caught his breath, then:

  “So I’m going to deal with it now, rather than endure the end. But first, I need to tell you some things. And when this message is over, erase it immediately.”

  Tobias’s voice had grown stronger as he uttered the last sentence. Tell me what? Ethan waited. A lengthy space of tape played static. He shrugged and reached forward once more to stop the tape, thinking he’d heard the last of his uncle’s goodbyes. His finger brushed the erase button, but a wet cough erupted from the speaker, and he stilled. Tobias’s croaky voice sounded again:

  “Check the safe … I’ve changed the combination to your birthday. Look into the old case file, and keep my journal close at hand. You’ll have many questions. Some of them will be answered; most won’t. You’ll come across an important name: Ben Wallace. Don’t bother searching for him, he’ll probably find you.”

  Another fit of coughing came through the machine. Ethan stood frozen in expectation, eyes wide and darting from side to side, ears straining to hear whatever his uncle had to say next. Then it filtered out into the air; Tobias was speaking, but not to him:

  “What are you doing here?”

  Ethan waited for more, but this time nothing came. The tape stopped with a loud click.

  Wait – what? His breathing quickened as he rewound the tape and listened again. Yes, he’d heard right. Someone had been in the house with Tobias. Perhaps his uncle had been on the verge of suicide, but that didn’t mean he’d gone through with it.

  I knew it – Tobias didn’t kill himself; he was murdered. Ethan’s hands were shaking now, his heart thundering like a jackhammer.

  Then a new revelation dawned on him. Whoever had been there –
if they’d been listening long enough – would have heard about the safe. The contents Tobias was talking about might already be gone. Those items sounded extremely important to his uncle. He had to get them. Or at least see if they were gone.

  Ethan punched the erase button, turning to leave the room as the machine began to cycle back and remove the messages. He snatched his uncle’s spare keys from the bedside table with such haste that the Steelers emblem scraped a jagged line on its surface.

  In seconds, he was in the hallway outside the condo and sprinting for the stairs. He didn’t even bother to lock up. If Ethan hadn’t been in such a frenzy to leave, he might have noticed the dried blood on the outside knob of his door.

  06 Dirty Larry

  April 22, 1986, 8:51 AM

  “Seven letter word for rotten that ends with ‘D’. Geez, It could be anything.” Officer Stan Bailey stared at the crossword puzzle, clueless. He’d never been very good at these things. It’s not that he wasn’t a smart guy, but sometimes he just couldn’t see the sense in the questions. His wife rarely came across one that stumped her, filling out the solutions in just a handful of minutes.

  Stan checked his watch; it was almost nine in the morning. In a little more than two hours his relief would show up, and it couldn’t happen soon enough. He was past ready to leave this current post of just sitting like a lump on Yorkshire Way. He looked up at the massive frame. A ten foot high wall surrounded the house, the brick pattern interrupted only by a motorized gate for the entrance. These people had some serious dough!

  It had been a pretty quiet night but also a long one. His instructions were to not leave the premises for any reason, so he’d had to recruit one of his buddies to drop off some breakfast and the newspaper early this morning. As per usual with crime scenes, no one was allowed in without proper clearance.

  Stan looked back at the puzzle and began talking to himself. “Okay, donkey has to be right so the ‘D’ is correct. Tainted, spoiled, decayed … bah!” He crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the floorboard of the passenger side seat.

  Officer Bailey was beyond bored and restless, so he turned on the radio to listen to the morning news. Maybe something interesting was happening in the world. As the top of the hour intro sounded, he turned back to the house and saw a homeless man limping in its direction. The vagrant stopped at the trashcans that were sitting curbside and pushed away the yellow tape to rifle through the bins.

  “What the hell …” Stan shut off the radio, pulled the keys from the ignition, and opened the door of the squad car. He got out and approached the man. “Excuse me sir, you can’t go through those.”

  Startled, the old man weaved unsteadily on his feet as he looked up, then went back to rifling through the containers while he spoke. “Why not sonny? Seems like no one else has a need for this stuff, that’s why they gone and thrown it out, in’nit?”

  The smell of stale beer, hard liquor, and rotten breath from a mouth that apparently hadn’t seen a toothbrush this side of the decade assaulted Stan’s nose like a Mack truck. He backed away from the onslaught of unpleasant aromas.

  “You’re going to have to move it along, buddy. We can’t have any dumpster diving here. There’s a police investigation underway and they may come back for those trashcans.”

  The scraggly man made a noise of protest, then pleaded, “Awwwww c’mon man, jus’ let me take the glass bottles and cans and at least I can get some food in me ‘fore noon.”

  “If it were any other day, I’d cut you a break. But today you need to shove off and look elsewhere.”

  Stan felt bad for the man, he really did, but two things were certain: one, the pungent scavenger had to leave, and two, it was not going to be in handcuffs in the backseat of Stan’s patrol unit.

  In one of his early days on the force he’d wrestled a homeless man down, and the stink took forever to come off. He’d showered twice in a row after the scuffle and used almost a whole bar of Irish Spring before he finally felt clean. In the end his mission was accomplished, but Stan could swear to God he smelled like shamrocks for a week.

  “I tell you what,” Stan continued, still keeping a little distance from the old fellow. “I’ll give you ten bucks and you can go get yourself some food.”

  Stan could swear he saw a twinkle in the man’s cloudy eyes and then it faded just as quickly as it had appeared. “Make it twenty!” he crowed through rotten and missing teeth.

  Stan hesitated before getting his wallet and pulling out a twenty dollar bill. He held it out to the vagrant, who snatched it up and limped away.

  “What a shyster!” Stan muttered as he marched back to his car. He gave himself a quick sniff just to be sure none of the stink had stuck from his close proximity to the old codger. This shift had been non-eventful until now, but that wasn’t the kind of break in the flow he was looking for. Especially one that set him back twenty dollars.

  He climbed behind the wheel of his patrol unit again, stared through the windshield for several seconds, then leaned forward and grabbed the crumpled newspaper from the floorboard. He looked at the now wrinkled page and puffed out a breath. “Okay … so … seven letter word for rotten that ends with ‘D’.”

  07 Over the Ledge

  April 22, 1986, 8:57 AM

  As Ethan expected, the cop took the bait to make sure the scene remained intact. Ethan had given the bum fifty bucks for a breakfast meal, and in exchange the raggedy man performed with excellence as he spun a yarn right through his teeth – or tooth, in the old geezer’s case. Although Ethan’s billfold was a little lighter, he was satisfied with the result.

  Watching the bum dig through Tobias’s trash cans renewed his feeling from last night. He was now more convinced than ever that Tobias had been murdered. Why would a man hell-bent on killing himself take the trash out? The answer was simple – he wouldn’t.

  The distraction allowed Ethan to climb the giant oak just outside the large brick wall of his uncle’s estate. He scaled the tree, barely hearing the dialogue between the homeless man and the officer, despite the quietness of the morning. Then he jumped the distance between the tree and the ledge, took hold of the wall’s brickwork and slid down the side, landing with a quiet thump on the soft grass. The easy part was over – getting out later would prove more difficult. His uncle’s property wasn’t lined with trees inside the wall, so it would take some creative thinking. But he’d worry about that later.

  Ethan headed along the edge of the estate, aiming for the back door. As he trotted up the marble steps of the terrace, he pulled out a pair of latex gloves and put them on. It was more out of habit than anything else; his prints were already all over the place, carryovers from earlier visits.

  He used Tobias’s keys to unlock the upper and lower bolts on the heavy door. He pushed it open and bent down to slip under the tape covering the entryway.

  Ethan headed upstairs, straight to his uncle’s room via the long corridor that ran through the house, passing by guest rooms along the way. He hoped Tobias’s safe hadn’t been discovered or disturbed by the forensics team. The door to the room at the end of the hallway had been left ajar – something that never happened when his uncle was alive.

  Visitors were rarely allowed to enter here, including Ethan. A memory emerged – one time when he was just a kid, his parents stopped by to visit Tobias on a lazy Sunday afternoon. In a moment of boredom and curiosity, Ethan wandered alone through the house, exploring. Tobias caught him in the bedroom and gave him a severe scolding. It was the first time he’d ever seen the hidden panel in his uncle’s closet removed, with the safe behind it in full view.

  As Ethan crossed the room he couldn’t help but notice the bullet hole in the wall before he entered the closet. The sight of that hole was like a punch in the gut, but he shook it off. There was no time for that. He moved to the closet’s far wall where he knew the safe was and gave a soft knock on the wood, hoping to hear a hollow sound that would pinpoint the void behind it.

 
It had been ages since he’d seen the closet, but it still looked the same. How was he going to open the false wall? There were no handholds, knobs, or even buttons that he could see to release it from its latch. Then Ethan saw a switch. BINGO, this might do it.

  He flipped the switch, and the overhead bulb popped on above his head. Son of a bitch, of course it’s just a light switch. He felt stupid for thinking it would be so simple.

  Ethan began removing shoes from their shelves, looking and feeling in every crevice. He pushed dusty old hanging clothes aside, scanning the area for some type of switch or knob. When he finally stopped to glance at his watch, Ethan saw it was coming up on a half hour since he’d gone over the property ledge; he was no closer to gaining access to the safe. Perhaps he should start tearing the closet wall down. But no, that would just create complication when the cleanup team showed up and noticed the closet had been trashed.

  Turning around, he faced the wall again and rested a hand against the wood paneling. He stared down at the carpeting along the floor’s edge against the wall, as though it would give him the answer he needed. There were a few speckles of what looked like dried blood on the floor. Ethan frowned. How did blood get all the way over here? Maybe Tobias hadn’t noticed he’d coughed up some, or maybe he just hadn’t cared. He wondered if forensics had taken a sample. But it wasn’t worth dwelling on just now, and he didn’t like the mental picture of his uncle coughing blood. Ethan let the thought go and refocused on figuring out how to get to the safe.

  There were evident markings on the rug where the wall had been opened and closed repeatedly over time. His frustration mounted. He was so close to the safe, but it was still far beyond reach. Face it, Ethan, last night’s bender has seriously screwed with your skills of detection. He had to leave.