by Alan Russell
My words drove him off, but only for a minute. He returned with Mr. Alligator, one of his prized stuffed animals. My big, bad wolf has four stuffed animals. He likes to cuddle with them and carry them around the house. Sometimes I chide him for being a baby, but we both know I’m the enabler. They were Christmas presents to him from me.
I ignored Mr. Alligator, so Sirius left the room and came back with Vincent, a bunny rabbit with a missing—well, chewed-off—ear. In answer, I turned over. That didn’t stop Sirius from going to get Mrs. Roo. I learned of the stuffed kangaroo’s presence when I felt it drop on my back.
“Go away,” I told Sirius, and he did, but not for long.
When he came back to the room I could hear him breathing. I did my best to try not to acknowledge him. For five minutes, or maybe ten, he sat there and waited. Finally I opened an eye. In his mouth was Kong the gorilla. Kong is Sirius’s favorite. When he saw me looking at Kong, Sirius gave me his prized possession. He pushed it at me, insisting I take his baby, and as bad as I was feeling, I couldn’t suppress the tickle in my stomach.
I laughed, and I wiped a tear, and I cradled Kong, and I hugged my partner.
Sirius’s concern over my welfare managed to get me up and moving at zombie speed. That was about as good as I could do, since I didn’t feel quite alive. I took Sirius for a walk, and then I fed him. Then I had to take care of myself, which wasn’t as easy. I did a few tasks that didn’t require thought, before settling in front of my computer to check the day’s email.
There was one piece of unusual correspondence. I couldn’t remember having ever received an email with an address ending in @us.army.mil. The Reluctant Hero had dropped me a note. The subject line read Sua Sponte, and it took me a minute to remember the Ranger motto.
‘Of my own accord,’ I thought, and clicked on the mail and started reading.
Never thanked you for the dinner, man. It sure was one hell of an evening. You always that much fun?
Afghanistan is about 10,000 clicks from Hollyweird, like a universe and then some apart, but we still get our Pony Express reports here. It sounds like your case took some weird turns. Maybe you’ll write back sometime and tell me what happened. BTW, if a movie is going to happen I’m thinking Brad Pitt should play my part.
Sorry we didn’t get to talk after the ceremony. All I could think about was making my escape from L.A. I know I owe you big time for helping to make things right for me. Anyway, next time I’ll buy drinks. You can choose the place as long as it’s not the Chateau Marmont. It’s a good thing I’m getting combat pay, so I can take care of that tab. Drinking there was part of my bucket list. I guess it doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out why I was trying to make some headway on my list.
Now that I’m here, things seem clearer. I know that must sound strange, but I guess I needed the distance. For a long time I convinced myself that my life could never come to any good end. I think I needed a world of conflict because that’s all I felt inside. But for the first time since forever, I think I’m finally ready to come home from war. I never imagined the possibility of any kind of life awaiting me, but maybe I’ll actually be able to join the living.
Kelley emailed me a picture of her little girl. She’s beautiful like her mother. She also sent a picture of Matthew holding his little sister. In the pic he was wearing a Lakers jersey that came down to about his knees. I don’t know why, but seeing those pictures sort of freed me up, and I got this notion in my head that one day I might be able to be a real father, not a ghost father, and have a real wife, not some fantasy woman I could never have.
Didn’t mean to get all heavy here, but like I said, it’s easier for me to think better from a distance. And guardians of the night got to stick together, right?
Give your hellhound a hug from me.
More than ’nuff for now,
Caine
I read his note three times, and then I called Lisbet and asked her if I could come over.
We settled down on Lisbet’s coach. I probably looked like hell because she extended her hand toward me and started kneading my arm.
“There’s a lot I need to tell you,” I said, “but I’m afraid to start because I don’t know where it’s going to lead, and that’s kind of scary.”
Her face suddenly looked about as drawn as mine. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m the matter. It wasn’t that long ago—even though it now seems forever—when both of us were listening to ‘Angel of the Morning,’ and you told me that it almost felt as if our relationship was an affair. And then I got caught up in my cases, and it seems we’ve hardly seen each other since, and all this time we both kind of left that door closed.”
“I know you’ve had a crushing workload.”
“That’s been my excuse,” I said. “But I also think that I’ve been avoiding you.”
In little more than a whisper she asked, “Why is that?”
“I thought that by keeping my distance, I could also keep bad things away from you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was afraid that you might be—tainted—by my world. I didn’t want you to be dirtied by me.”
“And that’s why you’ve been keeping me at arms length?”
“That’s not what I wanted. But I was sure it was the right thing to do. After the fire I was assigned this one headshrinker who liked to talk about everyone having their shadow side. He said there was darkness in all of us, and that what happened to me could make me potentially vulnerable to that darkness. But I acted like that wasn’t an issue, and I made a joke of the whole thing. I did my Obi-Wan imitation for that shrink, and I said, ‘Beware the dark side, Luke,’ and all the while I pretended like everything was fine. I fooled everyone in my life except for maybe Seth, and I tried to fool myself. But all this time I’ve been looking for my way out of that fire. And all this time I’ve been burning. And the only thing I was sure of was that if I was going to combust, I didn’t want you burning with me.”
“I wish you’d allowed me a say in that.”
“I’ve been as dishonest with you as I was with the shrinks.”
“Maybe you’re not as good at hiding who you are as you think.”
“Do you remember when I stayed over at your place, and Sirius kept interrupting our lovemaking? The reason he was going ballistic is because of what was happening outside. Novak was recording us. I found out that night, but I didn’t tell you how our private time together became an object of amusement for Corde and his friends. And since then I’ve been afraid to tell you what happened. I felt guilty for bringing that evil into your world. And I’ve been afraid of what else I might bring.”
“Do you think there aren’t ugly things in my world, Michael?”
“When my house was on fire, one of the first things I thought was how glad I was that you weren’t there.”
“And when you told me what happened, the first thing I thought was that I wish I had been there to help you fight those flames.”
“Everything in these cases I’ve been working might come back to bite me. Every time I crossed the line, I told myself I was doing the right thing. I brought in a civilian to help me, and the cover story was that he was there as part of another case. I manipulated events, and because of that people died. And when I couldn’t find the evidence to solve a case, I compromised others and put them in impossible situations, essentially blackmailing them into compliance.
“And right now I can’t even be sure in my own mind if I’m complicit in a murder or not. Ellis Haines took some cues from what I said and then must have had one of his followers trail me. That brought them to Novak. It was a Haines disciple that firebombed him in his car. Haines was careful to not come right out and say that, but that’s what happened.”
“And you think you’re at fault?”
“I know I’m a long way from being above re
proach.”
“Let me play in your blame game then. Novak was trying to kill you. And he wasn’t alone. You were lured to a spot where the intent was to run you down in what was supposed to look like a tragic accident. How is all of that on you?”
“I’m supposed to be better than the people I’m investigating. The fire changed me. It started me on a slippery slope. When Haines was on trial and I was on the stand, I lied under oath. I never read him his Miranda rights, even though that’s my sworn testimony. And I threatened to murder him while the two of us were burning, which is something else I denied under oath. And now Haines and I have more deaths and more fires we’ve experienced together. I don’t want any of that to touch you.”
“Do you think you’re the only one who is protective, Michael? Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s nobler for you to retreat than to reach out.”
“Do you still think I’m on the side of the angels?”
“More than ever.”
“I guess we’ll never know. My search for angels has reached a dead end. I thought Bass might be able to provide me with answers. I sweated him, and he said he knew that Corde and Novak were up to something, but they kept it between them. He was sure it must have been some kind of hunting game. Bass said that Corde was a proponent of holographic gaming and had invested substantial research and development money on that front. He was sure it would revolutionize video games, and perhaps war games. So it’s likely I was chasing a ghost, and not an angel. But why the secrecy? And why would Corde have made that announcement about judging angels?
“Bass also said he overheard Novak talking to Corde about something he recollects was called ‘Project Revelations.’ And when Novak realized that Bass was within earshot, he suddenly clammed up. There are all these whispers out there, but that’s all they are.
“Corde told me I’d never find out about the angels unless I played ball with him. He said the only way to the truth was to go through him. I guess he was right about that. He got rid of all the evidence. All his hard drives were wiped clean. And anything that had to do with his illegal hunts—whether or not they involved angels—was burned, deleted, or destroyed.”
Lisbet nodded and smiled, and that surprised me. “What’s so funny?”
“Did you really think you could find your way to angels through Corde? That’s not how it works. And neither should you expect to find angels through police work.”
I found myself smiling too. That surprised me even more. “I had hoped Wrong Pauley’s autopsy would supply answers, but it’s not even clear if he was murdered. It’s possible his body went into shock because of his cold turkey and his decision to stop drinking. He died of respiratory failure. His system showed elevated levels of epinephrine, but it’s unclear whether he was injected with it or he had some extreme fight or flight event that resulted in his death.”
“Flight,” said Lisbet. “I choose to believe he departed with angels.”
“I hope you’re right. I came over here to try and convince you that we shouldn’t be together and that you didn’t need or want my kind of toxicity in your life, but at the same time I was praying you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Consider your prayers answered.”
I thought about Caine Pullman’s note to me and how he was now able to envision a future. I looked at Lisbet and I saw my own future.
And I finally knew it was time for me to come home from the war as well.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Like Blanche DuBois, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers—and friends. For many years Bob Connely trained dogs, and I appreciate his encouraging me to ask him any and all canine question I might have. Since the publication of Burning Man, Bob and other readers have been sending me interesting articles, cartoons, and trivia that have to do with the world of dogs (I can be reached at my website of www.alanrussell.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AlanRussellMysteryAuthor). It was one of those stories sent by Paul Dover that found its way into the plot of this book. Paul is one of my international readers, and is trying to convert me into a Nottingham Forest booster.
I would also like to thank Kevin Smith for his work in helping me improve this book. I suppose it’s funny, if not surprising, that in our conversations Kevin and I spent ten percent of the time talking about this book, and ninety percent of the time talking college hoops. And speaking of hoops, here’s a tip of the hat to fellow basketball junkie Andy Kurz for doing his lawyerly best to answer some legal questions I had that pertained to the plot.
As always, my thanks and gratitude goes out to Laura and Cynthia. Writing a book is like running a marathon, and I’m glad to not have to run it alone.
And finally, I wish to thank the entire crew at Thomas & Mercer. Since making my home at T&M I have always been encouraged to write the novel that I most want to write. I have worked with many publishers, and I truly believe that T&M is the best. My thanks to Alison, Alan, Jacque, Gracie, Tiffany, and everyone else on the T&M team that helped with the publication and marketing of this novel.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2012 Stathis Orphanos
Alan Russell is the bestselling author of ten novels, including Burning Man, St. Nick, Shame, Multiple Wounds, The Hotel Detective, and Political Suicide. His books have been nominated for most of the major awards in crime fiction, and he has won a Lefty award for best comedic mystery, a USA Today Critics’ Choice Award, two San Diego Book Awards for best mystery novel, and the Odin Award for Lifetime Achievement from the San Diego Writers/Editor Guild. He lives with his wife and children in Encinitas, California.
