Tom looks at Jimmy, then over at me. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for exoneration for my clients, just a fair shake, a fair punishment, and maybe some treatment. Most of the cases I take on pro bono are drug addicts, and some have done some pretty horrific things by the time I see them. There’s still hope for some, though. Or maybe that’s just what I tell myself.” He pauses, worrying his hands together in his lap, and then he says the most incredible thing: “I used to be one of them.”
Jimmy and I exchange a startled look.
Tom nods. “It’s not something I’m proud of, but I don’t hide it either. Nor do I try to pass myself off as a victim, or claim that I have a defective gene that makes me susceptible to addiction. It was my fault, plain and simple. When I tried drugs for the first time, no one forced me. I chose to partake, and everything that followed was a consequence of that primary decision. It wasn’t long before I was chasing the dragon in a really bad way.” He pauses. “Have you ever heard that phrase? Chasing the dragon?”
“Doesn’t it refer to constantly looking for the perfect high?” Jimmy says.
“Your first high,” Tom corrects, “because, for most people, the first high is the perfect high. There’s nothing like it, and no matter how you try you can never repeat it. Everything that follows seems to fall short, and soon you find that you’ve spent all your money, alienated friends and family, stolen, even sold your body, all in pursuit of the dragon.” Jenny places a gentle hand on Tom’s leg, which he quickly cups in his own.
“It’s a hell you don’t want to know, because even after it rips you apart and breaks you into small pieces, you still love it; you still crave it.” He pauses, studying his wife’s hand with the vacant stare of one preoccupied with distant thoughts.
“Chasing the dragon,” he finally says, the words sounding airy, as if breathed into existence, rather than spoken. “The phrase actually originated in Hong Kong in the 1950s, you know—and had a slightly different meaning. Dragons are almost deified in China, so when addicts figured out they could heat heroin on a piece of tinfoil and inhale the fumes, the practice practically named itself. They quickly learned to keep the foil moving over the flame so the heroin would vaporize properly without burning. This back-and-forth movement caused the fumes to rise in a wispy, zigzag pattern. They’d suck in the vapors with a tube or straw, chasing the fumes along their zigzag course—chasing the dragon.”
“But you beat the dragon,” I remind him.
Tom smiles and shakes his head. “You don’t beat the dragon,” he says, “you just build a castle out of your family, faith, and friends and keep the beast out. There are no stronger walls. It’s worked for me for more than three decades.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Jimmy says, “what helped you get clean?”
“My addiction started with one friend, and ended with a better friend,” he says with a smile. “As a teenager I had almost no supervision; typical latchkey kid. My dad was always on the road with his job, and Mom worked to help make ends meet. We were living in L.A. at the time, and it was a friend on the block who introduced me to pot. By fifteen I was using heroin on a regular basis and dabbling in other drugs. I never stole from my mom, but I broke into cars and houses on a regular basis and traded whatever I stole for my next hit. Of course, I got caught.
“It was after my third arrest that I met Parker Jones. He was with the juvenile division of the public defender’s office and was new on the job, so new that I was his first case. I don’t know who was more nervous, him or me. Anyway, he was the first person to really look out for me, while at the same time giving me the straighten-up-and-fly-right treatment.”
He looks directly at Jimmy, then at me. “It was because of him that I moved to Tucson when I was eighteen. I did a couple years for my crime spree in L.A. first, but Parker always kept in touch. He visited once or twice a month and even put some money on my books now and then so I could buy some commissary.” He grins. “You’ve never had a better-tasting candy bar or soda than when you’re behind bars.
“Anyway, a year before I was released Parker got a better job in Tucson. I’d been working on finishing high school at his insistence, and before he left he promised to help me get my juvenile record expunged when I turned eighteen, provided I got my diploma. I think he was afraid I’d give up without him around to push me, and I was determined to show him I could do it. I didn’t want to disappoint him.”
Tom pushes back in the sofa, his hands relaxed in his lap with Jenny’s hand still entwined. “He was true to his word, in every way. I had some probation time to serve after my release, but the day it was over I hopped on a bus for Tucson. I can only imagine what he was thinking when I showed up on his doorstep, but if there was any apprehension he didn’t show it. He just gave me the proudest smile I’d ever gotten—from anyone. When he went to shake my hand I hugged the guy.
“I started at the community college three months after arriving in Tucson. Two years later my juvenile record was sealed. Four years after that I graduated from the James E. Rogers College of Law, eager to take the bar exam. It was Parker Jones I looked for in the audience when they handed me my diploma.”
The smile on Tom’s face is warm and penetrating, the type that makes others eager for what he has before they even know what it is. “He’s retired now, of course,” Tom continues. “Spends a lot of his time in the desert stargazing, which is how I got sucked into that infernal hobby. We still meet every Saturday morning for coffee. That’s just a couple days away. If you boys are still in town, you should join us.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Jimmy says, “but we usually don’t stay in one place very long; hazard of the job, I’m afraid.”
“I understand.”
“So all the pro bono work is your way of paying it forward?” I say.
“Yes,” Tom says, but he’s hesitant. “No, that’s only partly true, I suppose. It’s more about showing Parker that everything he poured into me was not wasted. He tried helping others, of course, but for every one that gives you hope, there are fifty that break your heart. In the end, there’s no such thing as rehabilitation; there’s just those who want to change and commit to it, and those who don’t. Sometimes you have to bounce off the bedrock pretty hard before you’re ready to fix yourself.”
When we leave the warmth of the adobe home an hour later, full up on brownies, lemonade, and hope, we linger a moment at the car and exchange a parting wave with Tom and Jenny. Neither of us wants to leave; we could have spent the entire evening and on into the early morning talking with the couple. It’s fitting that the desert sky is dusky and the first stars of night are brilliantly ensconced above us.
I look on them with new eyes.
* * *
Jimmy and I grab a bite to eat and then make our way to the Best Western near the airport. Marty and Les discovered the motel shortly after we landed and Marty texted Jimmy immediately afterward just raving about the place. It’s nice as far as motels go, I suppose; I’ve just seen too many to judge fairly, too many to care, and right now I just want someplace air-conditioned where I can kick off my shoes.
With our card keys in hand, we’re barely thirty feet from the front desk when Marty pops out of the elevator wearing nothing but flip-flops, blue swim trunks that reveal too much, and a white motel towel draped around his neck.
“Holy cow, Marty,” Jimmy blurts, “do the civilized world a favor and put on some clothes!”
Marty is Pacific Northwest to the bone, with legs so white I swear they’re reflecting light onto the walls and ceiling as he moves. The rest of him isn’t much better. “Hey, guys,” he says with a grin, flexing a nonexistent bicep. “Care to join me in the hot tub?”
“It’s seven thousand degrees outside, Marty,” I say. “Ever hear of heatstroke?”
“Nah, that’s what the swimming pool is for; it feels ice-cold after the hot tub. Kind of like doing that polar bear thing, you know, where they go out and jump in a la
ke in the middle of winter.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it’s just like that,” I scoff. “Where’s Les?”
“Ah, he’s being antisocial; said he’s going to write a letter to his wife.”
I elbow Jimmy and give an approving nod. He just shakes his head and tries to squeeze past Marty without touching any exposed skin.
“How about you, Jimmy?” Marty presses, moving in a little too close for comfort. “Care for a little hot tub therapy? We can relax and get caught up, just you and me, copilot and super-agent, mano a mano.”
“You know that means hand-to-hand?” I say.
Marty gives me an odd look. “No, I’m pretty sure it means man-to-man. You know, mano … it’s man with an o on the end.”
“Dude, mano means hand; hombre means man. If you want to say man-to-man, it’s hombre-a-hombre.” I can’t believe I just said dude. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear Marty’s an IQ vampire: the longer you’re around him, the more he sucks the smarts right out of you.
“Hand,” Marty says with a chuckle and a shake of his head. “That’s pretty funny. So I just asked Jimmy to go hand-to-hand with me in the hot tub.”
“Eww,” Jimmy says, overexaggerating his facial expressions as he slips into the elevator.
“Whoa.” Marty chuckles. “I didn’t mean—”
“Ah-ah-ah! Keep those manos where we can see them,” I say as I step past him and start punching the number three button on the panel.
“Marty, I’m married,” Jimmy says with a perfectly serious look on his face.
“I’m spoken for,” I pipe in quickly when Marty turns his failing grin my way.
“Guys, that’s not what I meant,” he says as the doors close. “Guys?”
We’re still chuckling when we get off on the third floor.
After dumping my go-bag in my room, I join up with Jimmy across the hall. He’s already got his laptop set up and connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi, but he’s having trouble logging into his email. After a minute it finally takes and he finds a half dozen new messages. The two most recent are from Dr. Stone: one has the report; the other has a series of photos.
I read over Jimmy’s shoulder as he scrolls through the material. “It seems to fit your theory,” I say, referring to his earlier episode of deductive reasoning at Hangar 7. “But like El Paso, we can’t be sure until we know who the victim is. So far all we have is feet and more feet.” I take a drink from the sweating plastic bottle on the table in front of me and then screw the cap back on tight. “You know what this reminds me of?”
“I’m afraid to ask,” Jimmy says without looking up.
“You know all the feet that keep washing up around the Puget Sound and up into Canada? There was another one earlier this year in Seattle.”
“How could I forget?”
“Well, for a couple years people were speculating that they were victims of organized crime or some serial killer with a foot fetish, especially since a dozen or so were found within about a hundred miles of each other. You don’t see that happening in other parts of the country.”
Jimmy’s smiling, but shaking his head. “They eliminated foul play in a couple of those, you know? Turns out they were probable suicides. My guess is the rest were either suicides or accidental drownings.”
“I know, and I’m not saying it’s related, or even sinister, it’s just that seeing those feet at the ME’s office still inside their shoes reminded me of the flyers we got on the floaters. Kind of weird, that’s all.”
“It’s not weird, it’s science,” Jimmy replies. “The feet wash up because they’re encased in rubber-soled shoes that protect them from predation, and also make them buoyant. The fact that they separated from the body is just part of the natural decaying process. After stewing too long in the water, the ankle disarticulates and off floats a foot in search of a beach.”
“Yeah, but how come so many wash ashore in the same area?”
“Tides,” Jimmy says with a shrug. “Plus, things tend to get trapped in the Puget Sound. The only sizable waterway in and out is the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Add to that all the canals, bays, inlets, and islands throughout Puget Sound, and the place is one big sticky swath of flypaper for flotsam and jetsam. Honestly, once a body—or in this case a body part—ends up in the Puget Sound, the chances of it finding its way out to the ocean aren’t very good.” He lifts his paper coffee cup as if to offer up a toast, and then chugs it down in one long pull.
“That’s not science; you’re just guessing.”
“I am,” Jimmy admits, “but it sounds good, right? You know what else sounds good?” He swivels the laptop around on the table so I can see the screen, and gives me a double flash of his eyebrows. It only takes me a second to realize what he’s up to.
“Really?”
He grins. “Why not? It worked before.”
“We got lucky,” I say. “When do you want to do this?”
“Relax, princess; you can get your beauty rest. We’ll hit it first thing in the morning.” Swinging the laptop back around, he adds, “Maybe we can wrap this thing up in another day or two.”
“I don’t believe in maybe,” I say, standing and retrieving my soda from the table. “It disappoints me every time.”
CHAPTER NINE
In the Umbra of Bygone Terrors—September 5, 3:03 A.M.
Something wicked this way comes.
Something wicked this way comes.
Something wicked this way …
The cold is upon me, bone-deep with teeth of stone. The wind gnaws upon my scalp, my cheeks, my hands; it worries, worries, worries the skin with a thousand little bites that leave me numb, red, and raw at every exposed opening. But it’s not from wind or ancient cold that I shiver, nor from teeth of stone upon my bones.… Something wicked this way comes.
At first it’s just a shadow, an empty spot in the darkness among the trees, but given time, shadows twist and convulse. From behind their stygian veil can issue things both beautiful and hideous. Only the shadow knows what lies within.
There’s something familiar about this, an aftertaste of déjà vu.
I’ve been here before.
As the shadow begins to take form, my first impression is that of a giant. It’s outlined by a lesser tint of darkness, a seven-foot void in the blackness. Its breath mists the air white from invisible nostrils, each exhale akin to the rumblings of a minotaur.
His eyes are upon me.
Though I can’t see them, I can feel them slowly dissecting me piece by piece, layer by layer. He’s closer now and I recognize the shadow’s build—the broad shoulders, the head, but … no. It’s not him.
That was done and settled years ago.
It’s not him.
The moon breaks over my left shoulder. Wrestling free of the clouds, it casts its silver glow upon the snow and marches up to the primal forest. Still he waits, breathing, watching, listening. There’s more of him now, this Neanderthal apparition with hams for fists and timber-thick limbs. As moonlight struggles with shadow, I see his camouflage pants, his orange vest, the shotgun under his arm.
It is him, and this is not done or settled.
Pat McCourt—I killed him three years ago.
“It’s a dream,” I hear myself say. “Just a dream.” And it’s one I’ve had before, one that resurfaces every few months. “Wake up,” I say to the darkness, but I don’t, and then something changes in the dream.
No, several things change.
First, the moon brightens. It’s now a floodlight reflecting off the snow and off every trunk and branch in the forest. Second, Pat McCourt exits the shadows and starts walking toward me, slow at first, then more briskly. Third, it’s not Pat McCourt.
“It’s a dream,” I remind myself, “only a dream; just wake up.”
The shotgun barrel sweeps up and fixes on my chest as the creature closes. He’s human from the neck down, but what perches on top is a grotesque mask of dead gray skin with a snowman’s nose and
eyes—coal-black clumps that see and smell nothing.
The worst part is the mouth.
A slithering inch-thick band covering the whole lower half of the so-called head, it droops on both sides to form a sad frown. The frown is fixed yet moves constantly in small parts. It moves because it must, because worms can’t remain still, not while they’re living.
“Sad Face,” I hear myself gasp.
He’s on me in an instant. The barrel looms before me and he bears down on the trigger. A shot rings out, echoing in my head.
I can smell the gunpowder.
* * *
When I open my eyes I find only darkness, that and the red glow of the motel clock. It’s 3:03 A.M. I didn’t wake screaming or trembling, nor am I covered in sweat. The dream was similar to others, but now my nightmares seem to be merging together, blending into new and terrifying mixes.
I’m fine, though.
Well, not fine, just better.
I’ve been talking to Heather about my nightmares, it seems to help. They don’t seem to come as often, and when they do I soon recognize them for what they are. They can still be terrifying, but less so when I feel in control.
Rolling onto my side, I stare at the clock until it rolls over to 3:07 A.M. and then I close my eyes and picture Heather in the passenger seat of my car, her hair tossed lightly by the rush of air from the open sunroof as we drive along Chuckanut Drive.
When sleep finds me, I’m in better company.
Pima County Adult Detention Center—September 5, 8:37 A.M.
“Well, this is … pretty amazing,” Jimmy says, turning the rented Cadillac Escalade off West Silverlake Road and into the parking lot of the Pima County Adult Detention Center. The corrections facility is located in South Tucson, just blocks from Sentinel Peak, or “A” Mountain, as it’s more commonly known, which rises some twenty-nine hundred feet in the background. Back home we have hills that are taller, but if they want to call it a mountain, so be it.
Whispers of the Dead Page 10
