Guardians of the Night (A Gideon and Sirius Novel)

by Alan Russell

  The Padre gave me a knowing look; that pretty much summed up my limited knowledge of angels.

  “The Bible tells us that angels are bodiless, immortal spirits,” he said. “However, scripture also makes it clear that they can take visible form.”

  “Immortal?” I asked.

  Father Pat nodded. “I know you said this man believed he witnessed the murder of an angel, but scripture tells us this can’t be. In Luke it is written that believers who go to heaven can no longer die, for they are like angels. God gave mankind souls; angels are spirits. And spirits cannot die.”

  “So you think it’s likely my witness was mistaken, or maybe deluded?”

  He shook his head. “I am afraid I don’t have enough information to even speculate. Your witness never said he saw an angel being murdered. That was his conclusion. Wrong Pauley was looking away when he believes the angel was vaporized. He said he assumed the angel was murdered, but he didn’t witness it. In the Bible there are a number of accounts of angels fighting demons. The Archangel Michael had to fight a demon for twenty-one days.”

  “My witness said he saw the angel’s life force spilling out from him. He likened it to someone who was severely wounded bleeding out.”

  “In that analogy, he made the mistake of comparing humans and angels. One is flesh, the other is spirit.”

  “He called the angel a ‘being of light.’ Is that in keeping with scripture?”

  Father Pat nodded.

  “I can’t rule out the possibility that he was having an alcohol-related psychosis. By his own admission he would have been legally intoxicated at the time of his sighting. And he admitted to a long history of drug and alcohol abuse. If any testimony could easily be discredited, it would be his. Plain and simple, he’s not a reliable witness.”

  “And yet you believe what he told you?”

  I nodded and then added, “That’s not to say I haven’t had eyewitnesses offer sworn testimony that was ultimately proven to be wrong beyond any shadow of a doubt. And those eyewitnesses weren’t even drinking. Sometimes our eyes deceive us.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “My witness is dead,” I said, and I told him about the death of Wrong Pauley and my subsequent interview with Drew Corde. When I finished, Father Pat folded and unfolded his fingers and appeared at a loss of what to say.

  “In my work I hear many unusual stories, Michael,” he said, “but your story is certainly the most unusual I have heard in some time.”

  “My witness was drunk,” I said. “He saw something unusual and then watched a man get out of his car and proclaim how we shall judge angels. I am wondering if his hearing convinced him he was looking at an angel.”

  “I suspect he wasn’t a man who was easily influenced,” said Father Pat. “His description of the angel did not include its having a halo or wings. Most people expect their angels to have those things, even though they are not Biblically based. Your story would be far less bothersome to me if your witness had claimed to have seen a fat, little cherub, with rosy cheeks, who looked like a flying toddler.”

  “I wish he’d had the chance to talk to you,” I said, “and not me. All he got from me was Doubting Thomas. Seeing what he thought was a wounded angel wasn’t easy for him. And he was shaken by hearing our mystery man make his pronouncement of judging angels.”

  Father Pat sighed. “I am afraid when I heard your story it had much the same effect on me. I will be sure to offer up a prayer for him.”

  “And I will try and figure out what he really might have seen and what happened to him. Maybe he was witness to some kind of imaginary and illegal game. Maybe drones were being used to hunt down a new kind of target. Those involved clearly didn’t want anyone to know of their activities. That would explain why all the surveillance footage was disabled.”

  “But what it wouldn’t explain,” said Father Pat, “is why anyone would want to hunt angels, even the imaginary kind.”

  I thought of Corde’s trophy room. Given an opportunity to bag an angel, I knew he would be first in line. I didn’t say that to Father Pat, but he seemed to be thinking the same thing.

  “There’s something about your story that reminds me of the hubris of Nimrod,” he said. “You might remember that Nimrod was a king, and the mightiest of all hunters. His power was unequaled among men, as was his pride. It was Nimrod who ordered the Tower of Babel to be built.”

  He made his stairway to heaven to display his power. Nimrod did it because he could. I was willing to bet Nimrod was also the kind of guy who would have hunted angels.

  “I believe angels are all around us,” Father Pat said, “but we are unable to see them. There are passages in the Bible where God has suddenly revealed his host of angels, and His opening that curtain allowed human eyes to see what was there all along. But as reassuring as it would be to look upon that heavenly host, I have to admit that I do not like the idea of mankind having angel radar. I would be frightened as to how we would put to use such optics. It is better to remain blind to some things.”

  “You don’t need to worry about angel radar.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I have devil radar,” I said. “I’ll find our bad guy, or bad guys.”

  “As always, you will be in my prayers.”

  “I count on that. I know I don’t need to tell you this, but let’s put the confessional seal on what we discussed, okay?”

  “In that case,” said Father Pat, “I’d like to hear your Act of Contrition.”

  It had been a long time since I’d said those words, but I managed to stumble through them. I half-expected Father Pat to fine me another Benjamin for my slip-ups, but instead he offered me absolution.

  CHAPTER 10:

  A WHALE OF A TALE

  In the parking lot I caught up with my missed messages. J. Gloria Keller had called three times. Each message was more pointed than the last, with her last one close to outright blackmail.

  “My client says if you don’t agree to meet with him forthwith, he will supply me with information with which we can revisit the legality of his arrest. I expect to hear from you today.”

  J. Glo was a publicity hound, but she was also said to be the worst kind of legal beagle: smart, tenacious, and unrelenting.

  “Crime doesn’t pay,” I said to Sirius, “unless you’re a lawyer.”

  Having one lawyer threatening to tie me up was bad enough, but now I had two. Maybe, I thought, I could put an end to being tag-teamed. It would mean getting J. Glo to do something I couldn’t. I called her number and she surprised me by picking up herself.

  “So what does Ellis Haines have on you?” she asked.

  “You’re the queen of nuisance suits, so your guess would be better than mine.”

  Actually, it wouldn’t. I had arrested Haines without ever reading him his Miranda rights, but under oath I swore that I had. It is the only time I ever knowingly lied under oath, and not a day has gone by when I haven’t felt a twinge of regret. I justified my lie in the knowledge that it kept a monster locked up. Somehow that monster had divined how my lie ate at me.

  “Nuisance suits?” she said. “You’ve got the wrong lawyer. My clients pay me six hundred dollars an hour not to do nuisance suits.”

  “It must be that I have nuisance suits on my mind,” I said, and explained the letter written to Officer Sirius and the one that had been written back to Francisco Garcia. “That’s why I didn’t get right back to you, and that’s why I’m jumping through hoops now. I’m working two priority cases, and with a potential lawsuit hanging over my head, I’m not sure I can clear the time to see your client.”

  “That’s your best attempt at poor, poor, pitiful me?”

  “I was thinking of another Warren Zevon song: ‘Lawyers, Guns, and Money.’ ”

  J. Glo wasn’t exactly sympathetic. �
��If you’d sent me that letter, Detective, I would have also played gong with your man tonsils.”

  “Let’s agree to never play marbles then.”

  “All the public defender is doing is using your note as leverage to get his client off.”

  “Garcia is also threatening a civil suit against me for what he termed were ‘emotional injuries’ he claims were caused by the false and slanderous allegations submitted to an officer of the court.”

  “That’s the usual sound and fury,” she said. “Is that what’s got your panties in a twist?”

  “Boxers,” I said, “or is that TMI?”

  “Are we doing this dance because you want me to do a reach-around with the other lawyer?”

  “I am not quite sure how to answer that.”

  Lawyers like to hit under the belt. J. Glo liked to describe under the belt.

  “You want me to make this situation go away, and if I do, you’ll see my client, right?”

  “I don’t remember saying that.”

  “I am not trying to entrap you into asking me how much for a happy ending, Detective. We’re just doing a little quid pro quo. So, if I make your life easier, are you going to do the same for me?”

  I decided to reward her for completing a sentence without referencing genitalia: “Yes.”

  “Ellis Haines will begin testifying later this week. You’ll meet with him at a time of our choosing in the next two days?”

  “Why don’t I just visit with him in the Q when he’s sent back?”

  Haines was imprisoned in San Quentin. The FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit had been disappointed when I put an end to my monthly visits to see him, but there came a point when even I realized just how toxic those meetings were to me.

  “Mr. Haines insists that the three of you have your reunion in Los Angeles.”

  “It will be just like old times,” I said. “Should I bring matches and tinder as well?”

  “The only thing you need to do is free up your calendar.”

  “I’ll do that, assuming that other encumbrance we talked about no longer has its talons in me.”

  “You and Officer Sirius need have no more worries on that account.”

  “Detective Sirius,” I said.

  “No wonder people are threatening to sue your ass.”

  Because J. Glo was in the top pantheon of criminal defense lawyers, it stood to reason that she could exert a lot of influence on her peers. Having Haines for a client gave her the kind of exposure money couldn’t buy, which was a pretty sad state of affairs if you asked me. Career advice in this modern world: hitch your wagon to a notorious murderer if you want to get ahead.

  Although Sirius and I aren’t assigned to any division, world headquarters for LAPD’s Special Cases Unit (SCU) is a cubicle at the Central Bureau on East 6th Street. That’s the same location where Officer Sirius received his fateful letter from Public Defender Francisco Garcia.

  We drove along Interstate 101. It had been two days since my last appearance at Central, and the watch commander took note of our entrance. Sergeant Perez has a loud voice, perfect for his job.

  “How are you, Detective Snoop Dogg? And you too, Sirius.”

  Every time Perez sees me, he uses a different dog nickname. I’m not officially one of the Central troops, but Perez likes to ignore that fact. He also likes to refer to SCU as the “Strange Cases Unit,” not Special Cases Unit.

  “Mail has been piling up for you, Slumdog Millionaire. Do you think I’m a carrier terrier?”

  “Now that you mention it,” I said, “everyone has been wondering about your habit of saying ‘hello’ by sniffing asses.”

  Perez started scratching his nose with his middle finger. That was about as subtle as he got. Sirius followed me over to an open cubicle and dropped down for forty winks. While I sorted through paperwork, he snored. He was still snoring when I began answering my emails. The Chief had forwarded several letters directed to his office. On each was his same designation: Special case? I punted on two of them.

  The third wasn’t as easy to put aside and certainly qualified as a special case. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), were requesting assistance from LAPD and the Los Angeles Port Police. They wanted us to be on the lookout for whale parts that might have been harvested from a blue whale. The agencies were investigating what they termed a “suspicious cetacean death” about fifteen miles off the coast of Los Angeles. Although foul play was not a certainty, the early forensic tests on remains found seemed to indicate an unnatural death. The letter went on to say that there were only two thousand blue whales in existence and that they were the largest animals ever to have lived on earth—ever.

  “As in they are bigger than the biggest dinosaurs that ever walked, swam, or crawled,” I said to Sirius.

  My partner didn’t react, but then he’d never gnawed on a brontosaurus bone.

  The letter concluded by stating that even if the blue whale had died a natural death, the trafficking of any of its parts was illegal under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. We were advised that one item that might turn up on the black market was the whale’s eight- to ten-foot penis.

  “Hello, Moby Dick,” I said.

  Every year, migrating gray whales travel along our coastline. Blue whales don’t usually frequent Southern California waters, but this year an abundance of krill had brought them close to shore. For the last month whale-watching firms hadn’t been able to keep up with all those hoping to get a glimpse of the extremely rare leviathans.

  Since the NOAA-NMFS investigation was still in its preliminary stages, I wrote back and identified myself as their LAPD departmental contact and asked to be kept in the loop. In a separate email to the Chief, I wrote that I didn’t think it would serve our purposes at this time to put a BOLO out on a ten-foot penis, especially as foul play hadn’t been definitively established, and it wasn’t even clear if any harvesting had taken place.

  “Detective Alfred Kinsey at your service,” I mumbled.

  Organizing my case notes took another hour. Most of that time was spent detailing my Wrong Pauley findings. There wasn’t much to write about the Reluctant Hero. In the middle of a piece of blank paper, I entered a question mark and then circled it. Then I inked in The Corner School and drew an arrow from the question mark to the school. I suspected the Reluctant Hero had some unknown connection to The Corner School. I went back to reviewing my notes, hoping to find something I might have overlooked.

  My doodles didn’t make anything jump out at me. Maybe something would surface when Sirius and I visited the school. The principal of The Corner School had jumped at the idea of our visit.

  In between making some calls, I did computer searches. I spent part of the afternoon learning what I could about Elle Browning and Drew Corde. Elle was tight-lipped about her private life; Corde less so. There were several pictures of Corde with a possessive arm around Elle. The two had been an item for six months. Neither had ever been married. Judging by all the other pretty women Corde had been pictured with, he seemed to be a player, although Elle was the first actress he’d dated. From what I could determine, Corde was Elle’s first live-in relationship.

  My other searches had me looking at Orion Zenith, IMDb, unmanned aerial vehicles, angels, undetectable poisons, surveillance, spy toys, and modern weaponry. If the NSA were monitoring suspicious searches, mine would have been at the top of the list.

  I twisted and tweaked my angel search, and stumbled on the Howard Fast short story “The General Zapped an Angel.” Fast’s tale was set during the Vietnam War and revolved around a twenty-foot angel shot down by American forces. Since no one in the army seemed to know what to do with the angel’s body, it was stored in a helicopter hangar. The situation resolved itself when the angel everyone believed was dead suddenly awakened and flew awa
y. The angel looked none too pleased with the military.

  It was a strange tale, I thought, but I suppose it had a happy ending. Wrong Pauley’s story didn’t.

  The writer Howard Fast is remembered mostly for his novel Spartacus. Kirk Douglas, in arguably his best role, played Spartacus in a movie with the same name. Over two thousand years ago Spartacus led a slave revolt against the Roman army, but things didn’t work out for him. It isn’t easy taking on the world’s supreme military force.

  At the moment, I was feeling like Spartacus.

  “I’m Spartacus!” I said to Sirius.

  He wagged his tail. I guess he was Spartacus too.

  “Want to go catch some rare air, Spartacus?”

  Sirius jumped up. He knew what that meant, and couldn’t wait.

  In Los Angeles County all dogs are supposed to be leashed. Violation of the county code can result in a fine north of two hundred dollars. Normally, Sirius and I adhere to the law, but when it comes to playing with discs, Sirius and I are scofflaws.

  Dogs and discs originated in Los Angeles. In 1974 college student Alex Stein smuggled his dog Ashley Whippet into a nationally televised baseball game between the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds. During the eighth inning Stein and Ashley jumped the fence and went onto the playing field, and for eight minutes the two of them entertained the crowd. The spectators weren’t the only ones enthralled; announcer Joe Garagiola gave a play-by-play of Ashley’s thrilling catches to the nation. At Chavez Ravine, and on television sets across the country, spectators were introduced to the sport of discs and dogs. Judging by the crowd, the acrobatics of Ashley Whippet were much more appreciated than the game itself, but finally Stein was escorted from the field and arrested.

  Sirius and I have never done our tossing and catching in Dodger Stadium, but in the tradition of Stein and Ashley we have illegally ventured on many other fields around the county. For the fifteen or twenty minutes we play, Sirius is unleashed. When the two of us worked Metropolitan K-9, we spent countless hours scouting out potential play sites. We were always looking for that spot where we could play with our discs, relatively undisturbed.