The Dead Man jd-3

by Joel Goldman

  Chapter Fifty-two

  The wind picked up, a fine mist stinging my face. I zipped my jacket and stuffed my hands into my leather gloves. The weather was turning sooner than the weatherman had predicted. That didn't make him wrong; it made him early.

  There's no way to sneak up on a house you're planning to break into in broad daylight when it's in a neighborhood watch area if people are serious about watching. The best option is to use the purposeful stride, a brisk walk marked by an authoritative posture, arms hanging loose at your sides, shoulders back and chin out front, the walk telling the neighborhood watchers that you've got every right to do what you're doing so butt out.

  I started at the front door, ringing the bell and rapping on the door, waiting a reasonable time before stepping behind the evergreens and in front of the windows to the right of the door, cupping my hands around my eyes and against the glass and peeking inside. The lights were off. I tapped on the window, getting no response. If Corliss had a watchdog, it was deaf.

  The garage was to my left, set at the back of the driveway like at my house. The overhead door was windowless and locked. The windows on each side were also locked; the glass dirty and streaked with layers of grime, making them more mirrored than transparent. The best I could tell, the garage was empty.

  The backyard was fenced, a rickety, wooden perimeter, with a gate that squealed for oil when I pushed past it. There was a screened-in porch at the rear of the house, its door unlocked. I hesitated. So far, I was a mere trespasser. One more step and I graduated to home invasion. I reached for the doorknob, stopping when I heard a voice behind me.

  "Police! Freeze!"

  I tried but I couldn't do it. The first tremors shot from my gut to my neck, turning me into a life-size bobble-head doll. My knees were the next to go. I gripped my thighs with my hands, trying to stay upright.

  "I said freeze! Keep your hands where I can see them!"

  I couldn't do that either and I couldn't talk, my vocal cords twisting into knots.

  "Sir, this is your last warning! Let me see your hands! Now!"

  I reached out with one hand to balance myself against the porch, my other hand wrapped around my middle and hidden from the cop's view. I made a quarter turn toward him, my hidden hand making his eyes pop. He aimed his Taser at me as I opened my mouth, yelling nooooo without making a sound, though he wouldn't have stopped even if he heard me. The Taser pins bit my neck like bee stings, fifty thousand volts putting me on the ground and out.

  The sun was shining in my eyes, making me squint. I shaded my forehead with one hand cutting the glare enough that I could see Kevin and Wendy playing at the ocean's edge, waves running up their legs, the chilly water making them shriek and giggle.

  I didn't know how they got there. She was eight and he was four, too little to be in the water by themselves which was why Joy and I had forbidden them to leave the beach house we were renting without us. A minute ago, they had been in the kitchen. Kevin was watching cartoons and Wendy was playing with Monkey Girl, her favorite stuffed animal, while I scrambled eggs for breakfast, one pan runny the way Kevin liked them, and another pan hard the way Wendy preferred.

  I ran to the beach, scooping them up in my arms but they slipped out of my grasp and ran away, Wendy holding Monkey Girl's hand, the monkey's feet dangling, leaving a trail in the wet sand. I chased after them, my feet bogging down, baffled at how they skimmed across the surface leaving me farther and farther behind. I yelled their names and they glanced back over their shoulders shouting at me to hurry.

  I kept running, catching up to them as the beach became concrete and the ocean transformed into streets with trees and houses and shops, all flashing by in a blur. It began to rain, cold sheets that blurred my vision. I ran on, harder and faster than I had ever run, losing more ground as Kevin and Wendy grew older, their strides quickening and lengthening as they ran. I called their names again and again as they looked back at me, this time crying, begging me to run faster.

  Kevin, now wearing the Dallas Cowboy's T-shirt we gave him for his ninth birthday, began to slow and stumble, his arms flailing as the pavement turned to mud. I churned and churned through the muck, getting closer to him; an arm's length back and I could hear his wincing breaths, a foot away and the fat rain drops splattering on his back splashed on me, then inches between us and I could smell him, the way he stank after a day in the sun, telling us he'd shower tomorrow. When at last I reached for him, he slipped through my fingers and the earth swallowed him.

  Wendy ran on, her voice reaching back to me, saying hurry, please hurry. She was still clutching Monkey Girl though she had grown up, her face lean and gaunt, her eyes hollow the way they were when I found her lying in the street in New York. The rain stopped. The mud turned into a hard, ridged track, cracking under a resurgent sun that burned my face as I ran after her, the rough ground slicing into my bare feet, my footprints bloody. Then she tripped and fell, sprawling and skidding, disintegrating on impact into a million pieces, and disappeared into the earth.

  I stopped running, whirled around, and saw Joy standing next to me, hands on her knees, her chest heaving. She'd been running alongside me the whole time though I never saw her. We should have saved them, she said, then looked at me and asked why we hadn't, but I had no answer. She bent down at the spot where Wendy had vanished and picked up Monkey Girl, sobbing and cradling it in her arms and walked away as I began shaking and crumbled to the ground, praying that it would claim me.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  A blood pressure cuff squeezed my right arm, swelling and releasing, as my dream faded and I rejoined the world, my eyes still closed.

  "I've never seen someone keep shaking this long after getting Tasered," a woman's voice said.

  "You think he's having a seizure?" another woman asked, her voice deeper than the first one.

  "I don't think so," the first woman said. "His vitals are normal. He's just shaking, like the current is still going through him."

  The shakes tapered to a few mild ripples and I opened my eyes. "Shaking is what I do."

  I was laying on a gurney inside an ambulance, flanked by two female paramedics, stethoscopes hanging around their necks. The one on my left was smiling; her partner on my right frowning, checking the readout on the blood pressure monitor a second time.

  I raised my head, glancing around. Quincy Carter was standing outside the ambulance, one of its two doors open wide enough to let him in and keep most of the cold air out.

  "And you're damn good at it," he said.

  "Thanks. First time I've been hit with a Taser."

  "At least you didn't shit your pants," Carter said. "It makes some guys do that. Makes some guys' hearts stop too. Be glad you didn't do that either."

  The shakes stopped and I raised myself up on my elbows. "I don't know whether to write a thank-you note to the cop who shot me or a testimonial to the manufacturer."

  "Easy," the paramedic on my left said, cupping the back of my head in her hands. "What kind of meds are you on?" she asked.

  "None."

  "What do you mean that shaking is what you do?" her partner asked.

  "I have a movement disorder called tics. Makes me shake."

  "Then I recommend against pissing off any more cops," she said. "Can you sit up?"

  I eased my legs off the gurney, the paramedics spotting me in case I wobbled. "So far, so good. What are you doing here?" I asked Carter.

  "Your cell phone was ringing when the paramedics got to you. When my name popped up on the caller ID, the officer who stopped you from breaking into Corliss's house answered it. I was returning your calls. The officer told me what happened and I asked him not to Taser you again unless he thought it would do you some good."

  "I owe you."

  "Don't worry. I'll collect."

  Carter and the paramedics helped me out of the ambulance. He held my elbow and escorted me to his car. My first few steps were half drunk but I was walking sober when we slid
into the backseat.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  I wiped my face with me hands. "All things considered, I should have taken the day off."

  "Why didn't you?"

  "Haven't been on the job long enough to build up any vacation time."

  "You're retired from the real job. The one you've got now ends at the front door of the Harper Institute. I won't ask what you were thinking when you decided to break into Corliss's house but I'd be interested in knowing what you were looking for."

  "Souvenirs," I said.

  "Not the kind you get at the county fair."

  "No, the kind a serial killer collects, like Regina Blair's jewelry."

  "The FBI passed Walter Enoch's case to us. That letter your daughter sent you and Enoch stole could be another one of the souvenirs."

  "You could be right. Have you found anything out about Regina Blair's jewelry?"

  He nodded. "Matter of fact, I did. Talked to her husband. He said Regina always wore a tennis bracelet, one of those things with diamonds all the way around."

  "Even on Sunday mornings when she was on a job site?"

  "He said that the bracelet belonged to Regina's mother. Said Regina never took it off day or night. We searched her house but didn't find it. We went back to the homeless guy who found her body and he denied taking it. Polygraph backs him up. Could have been someone else took it before he found her."

  "You don't sound convinced."

  "I'm just saying. That piece of paper with the initials on it that you e-mailed to me is real interesting but it doesn't make Regina's bracelet a souvenir. And I need the original of the list."

  I nodded, retrieved the envelope containing the list from my jacket pocket, and handed it to him. "There's more." I told him about Anne Kendall's dream narrative.

  "You didn't consider telling me about that and waiting for me to get a search warrant for Corliss's house?"

  "You have one?"

  He sighed. "The prosecutor is a pretty conservative guy. Some people say he's too scared of looking bad and losing, but you didn't hear that from me. He isn't sold on Corliss. Says the list of initials isn't enough to go in front of a judge for a warrant. Kendall's dream narrative will help but he'll want McNair and me to take a run at Corliss first. See if we can break him down or at least get something more solid for the judge."

  "Well, Corliss isn't home."

  "And when he gets home, his neighbors are going to tell him what happened here today if they haven't already left him voice messages about the guy who tried to break into his house and would have if they hadn't called the cops. That should convince him to get rid of any souvenirs he's collected."

  "Okay, I get your point. Waiting would have been better but I don't think he'll get rid of them. They're too important. He might move them, find another hiding place, but he'll hang on to them."

  "If he's our guy. In the meantime, we have to find him."

  "You think he's on the run?"

  "On the run or missing, or hiding, or at the movies, or down at the boats gambling. Who the hell knows? We haven't been looking for him long enough to say."

  "I'll let you know if I find him."

  "You? You aren't going to find anybody. You're going home."

  "Says who?"

  "Says me. You're in no shape to drive. I found Lucy Trent's number in your cell phone. I called her and she should be here in a few minutes. I told her to take your car keys away. You shouldn't be driving."

  "Why are you so concerned about my welfare?"

  "I'm not. I'm concerned about my case and having you running around breaking into my suspect's house isn't going to do me any good."

  "Don't worry. I'll stay out of your way."

  He turned toward me, his shoulders blocking out the passenger window. The mist had thickened into icy pellets pinging against the roof of the car.

  "Jack, I've known a lot of cops like you, guys who can't walk away. Every one of them has a good reason. Maybe it's the case they never closed that eats at them. Maybe it's not having anything else to do that matters. You, I get it. You didn't go out on your own terms. That's got to be hard. I don't know how I'd handle that. But you strike me as the kind of guy who knows better than to go after someone like Corliss on your own."

  "I said I'd stay out of your way."

  "That's not good enough, Jack. If you're right that Corliss is a serial killer, you've got to back the hell off. I mean all the way off. Stay out of my way and stay out of his way. You're no match for someone like that. I don't want you ending up one of his souvenirs. So do what you're told and don't make me arrest you for attempted burglary. Are we clear on this?"

  "Clear," I said as another burst of tremors danced through me.

  "Damn, you do shake."

  "It's what I do."

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Lucy and Kate pulled up next to us in Kate's car. Lucy jumped out of the passenger side, leaving her door open as I got out of Carter's, engulfing me in a hug.

  "You are so totally grounded," she said. "Hand over the car keys."

  "You have to let go of me first."

  She stepped back, her hand out. "Okay, let's have them."

  I fished the keys out of my jacket pocket and dropped them in her gloved palm. "Thanks for coming to get me."

  "Are you kidding? Like I've got time to find another tenant. I'll drive your car. You ride with Kate." She ushered me into Kate's car. "See you back at the ranch," she added, slamming the door behind me.

  "You've made quite an impression on her," Kate said, nudging her car down the wet street.

  "I'm the ideal tenant. I've got no place else to go."

  She laughed. "It's more than that. She's had a hard time. You're filling a void for her."

  "Actually, I think Simon's got that one covered."

  "So she told me. Good for her and good for Simon. You can walk her down the aisle."

  "Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself? So far, they're a one-night stand. There's a reason neither of them have ever been married."

  "Doesn't matter whether it's Simon or someone else. Mark my words. When the time comes, she'll want you to do the honors."

  I shifted my weight, the ride and the conversation making me uncomfortable. "I wasn't exactly Father of the Year material. I don't know that I'll do any better as a surrogate father."

  "Don't turn your nose up. Second chances are hard to come by."

  The ice was sticking to the windshield, building up on the corners outside the wipers' reach. The slick coating made the streets shine. Kate tap-danced her brakes, keeping her car under control.

  "She's a good kid," I said.

  "Good kids and second chances are both hard to come by."

  I knew where this was heading and I wasn't ready to go there. "Children aren't fungible. You can't trade them in for next year's model. Joy and I talked about having another baby after we lost Kevin but we couldn't get past the notion that we were trying to replace something that couldn't be replaced. I know that works for some people and God bless them but it didn't work for us. No one, including Lucy, can take Wendy's place."

  "And no one should. But life goes on."

  I changed the subject. "How did it go with your staff this morning?"

  "Dad is a lot better at those things than I am. He was terrific but everyone still cried."

  "It may not be as bad as you think," I said. "You were right about Harper. He did sabotage your practice."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I called him on it and he told me."

  "I hope he rots in hell."

  "Don't worry. He's got the whole hell on earth thing going for him," I said, explaining that Harper had Alzheimer's and was turning control of his affairs, including the institute, over to Sherry Fritzshall.

  "Well," Kate said, "I'm sorry that he's sick but I'm still going to sue his ass."

  "You won't have to. Sherry overheard Harper telling me what he'd done to you. She wants to meet with you
next week, no lawyers, and work something out. I think she's sincere."

  Her jaw clenched and loosened. "I don't know."

  "Don't turn your nose up," I said. "Second chances are hard to come by."

  "It's not that. With Dad retiring and Alan moving to San Diego, I don't think I can make it work by myself."

  "Sure you can. Sherry's not going to write you a blank check but she'll be reasonable. You'll be able to keep your staff together until you can recruit a couple of partners, maybe merge with another group. You can do it."

  She didn't respond, paying more attention to the road then necessary even given the deteriorating weather. Then I realized that I'd missed the point.

  "It's not that you can't do it," I said. "It's that you can't do it if Brian is going to be seventeen hundred miles away."

  She stopped for a red light and turned toward me. "No, I can't. Like you said, kids aren't fungible."

  I nodded. "No, they aren't. So, when are you moving?"

  She took a deep breath. "Not until the school year ends. I made a couple of phone calls today. I'm flying out there tomorrow and meeting with some people. It's all very preliminary. Dad will finish reviewing the dream videos for you."

  "Tell him that won't be necessary. The smart money is on Anthony Corliss. I was about to break into his house to look for evidence when that cop zapped me. The police are looking for him now. We'll see how that pans out."

  "I'm glad you're letting the police handle it."

  I gripped my armrests, holding myself in place as a new round of aftershocks rumbled through me, making me stutter. "About San Diego. That's the right decision."

  She reached across my seat, her hand on my wrist. "It's not a zero sum game, Jack. You can come too. There's nothing keeping you here."

  With her gone, she was almost right. "Who will walk Lucy down the aisle?"