A Hideous Beauty

by Jack Cavanaugh

  She was on a roll and getting animated.

  “. . . all this matter? All this dirt and rock and territory and human flesh that is so important to your history? It’s shaped by the supernatural more than you’re aware. You want to know what’s real?” Her jaw trembled. She was getting emotional.

  She reached into her bag and pulled out a purse. From the purse she retrieved three photos in succession and slapped them on the table, side by side. “This is real!” she said, tears coming now. “This is real history shaped by real supernatural forces.”

  Grant looked at the photos. The first was a studio shot of the professor, younger, though his hair was white. He smiled a carefree smile Grant had yet to see during his time with the man. A handsome woman embraced him from behind, her arms draped around his neck, clasped against his chest. Her head reclined against his. Her eyes, her smile, her demeanor, were that of a woman in love.

  The two other pictures were also portraits, the kind taken once a year at school. Two girls, both strawberry blond. The older girl looked like she was a fifth- or sixth-grader. Her smile was strained because she was trying to hide the braces on her teeth. But her eyes were those of a happy girl. The younger girl, possibly third grade, was a little pixie with mischievous eyes.

  “The professor’s family,” I said. Something told me there was a story attached to these pictures and it wasn’t a happy one.

  “The professor was in his second year at Heritage,” Sue said. “His doctoral study had been on kingdom warfare as portrayed in the New Testament, chiefly the book of Ephesians. He taught a course on kingdom warfare at the college which became quite popular. As a result, speaking invitations began to pour in and he traveled frequently, preaching on Sundays and teaching during the week.”

  Sue took a ragged breath before continuing. “He was beginning to get national attention and had just signed a contract to write a book when they visited him the first time.”

  “They?”

  “Beings you so easily dismiss as myths and fairy tales.”

  A shiver that stretched all the way back to Myles Shepherd’s office chilled me.

  “They tried to intimidate him, scare him. Shut him up.”

  “Why? If they’re so threatening you’d think that they would want people to know about them.”

  “Myths and fairy tales manipulating and controlling people? How ridiculous, Grant.”

  I accepted her chastisement. My statement made it sound like I believed they existed. It was obvious she believed it. But I was confident the story wouldn’t hold up under investigation.

  “At the time,” she continued, “the professor was serving as a volunteer chaplain for the police department. Once a week he would ride along in a squad car and basically make himself available to counsel victims. One day, while he was on duty, his unit was dispatched to an automobile accident with injuries.”

  Another ragged breath. She glanced down at the pictures on the table. “The professor didn’t know it was his family until he arrived at the scene.”

  Sue fished for a tissue. “A hit-and-run. Nora had just picked up the girls from school. She was turning left with the light. A red pickup truck ran the light. Nora and Jenny were dead when he got there.”

  She pushed the picture of the youngest girl closer to me. “Terri died in her father’s arms.”

  From the table four smiling faces looked up at me.

  “It wasn’t an accident, Grant. It was a message. While the professor was holding Terri, he looked up and saw the same three EDs who had threatened him. He blinked and they were gone.” Sue reclaimed the pictures one at a time and put them back in her purse.

  “EDs?”

  “A term I coined for my thesis. Extradimensionals. Angels. They have the ability to move between physical dimensions.”

  “The accident. How do you know—”

  “That it wasn’t just a common, everyday hit-and-run?”

  “That’s unfair, Sue. I wouldn’t make light of the professor’s pain.”

  “But that’s their intention, isn’t it? To make it appear as an accident. It wasn’t. It was murder. If you stick around for long you’ll come to realize they like the convenience of car accidents to cover their tracks.”

  The image of Myles Shepherd’s car burning on the Second Street off-ramp flashed in my mind.

  “In the Middle Ages they used forests a lot. A person wanders in and is never seen again. The ocean was popular for a time. Sailors get lost at sea. Their methods adapt with the times.”

  For one insane moment I found myself contemplating what she was saying as though it was true.

  Her cell phone rang. She answered it. Looking at me, she said, “Yeah, he’s here.” She flipped shut her phone. “Jana’s on her way.”

  We both sipped our coffee.

  I said, “While I’m sympathetic to the professor’s loss, and please believe me, I am. It’s just that . . . well, here’s the thing . . .” Clasping my hands together, I leaned forward. She met me halfway with intelligent, defensive eyes. “You see, when I write history, I interview people who witnessed the event. And from these eyewitness accounts I’m able to piece together what most likely happened. If I were to interview the witnesses at the scene of the accident where the professor’s family was killed, how many of them would tell me that they saw or even suspected that the accident had anything to do with angels?”

  “All right,” she said, playing along. “If you happened to come across an eyewitness account of angels . . . you’re saying you’d believe it?”

  I thought I knew where she was going with this. Admittedly, my grin was condescending. “While the professor is an honorable man, given the circumstances, I wouldn’t consider him a credible witness. You have to take into account his emotional state at the time of the accident.”

  “I’m not talking about the accident now,” she replied. “If you were to come across a bona fide eyewitness account of angels, would you believe it?”

  Why did I feel like I was being set up?

  When I hesitated, she said, “Unless you prejudge the people you interview. You know, root out those who will give testimony contrary to your preconceived conclusions.”

  “That’s bias. It’s unprofessional.”

  “So then, as a professional, one who values eyewitness accounts, if you were to come across an eyewitness account about angels, you’d believe it?”

  I sighed. She was relentless. I could think of only one way to find out what she was getting at, and that was to step into her trap. “If the source was credible . . . yes.”

  Sue Ling reached into her bag and pulled out a manila file folder. Inside it was a slim manuscript. I recognized the formatting instantly. She turned the pages so they were facing me. “This is an eyewitness account of a war in heaven.”

  “Heaven.”

  “It’s a narrative history of the events of a war that started before the creation of earth and time. You wanted an eyewitness account, here it is. Abdiel, a veteran of the war, has been recounting the events to the professor.”

  I picked up the papers and looked at them suspiciously. “White paper?” I said. “I would have expected golden tablets.”

  She didn’t laugh. I thought it was funny.

  The professor had attached a note to the front page. I lifted it to look at the text. I scanned the first couple of paragraphs.

  Before the clock of cosmic time was wound,

  In heaven, fresh made, there dwelt a holy race.

  Conceived in light for worship we were cast

  To walk in luster and eternal grace.

  Until a fatal wickedness was found . . .

  How do I, Abdiel, Seraph of the heavens, describe to

  humans clothed in flesh the horrors of celestial war?

  How do I explain countless dimensions to beings entombed

  in time? How do I narrate the tales of eternity,

  of heaven’s enduring villains, to a people who cannot

  conc
eive of life without a past, present, or future?

  And what of war itself and angel death?

  Of battle’s din and hills alive with celestial tribes . . .

  I looked up. “The professor’s not serious, is he?” I asked.

  I saw what was happening. I’d accused him of hiding, of letting other men take the heat of publishing while he contented himself with doing research from the sidelines. I must have hit a sore spot and now the professor wanted me to help him get published.

  I closed the manila folder and pushed it back across the table at her. “This isn’t history. It’s fantasy fiction. Taking one’s personal theological beliefs and attempting to bring them to life with fictional characters is fantasy. While I have to give the professor an A for creative writing, if I showed this to any credible historian, he’d laugh in my face.”

  “You haven’t read it,” Sue said testily.

  “I’ve read enough.”

  Sue Ling snatched the folder off the table and stuffed it back in her bag just as Jana Torres was walking by. She wore a dress skirt that swished just above her knees and black high heels.

  Before I could say anything, Sue was gone. She and Jana passed each other at the door. They exchanged words. Sue left and a none-too-pleased Jana joined me.

  “What did you say to her?” she cried. “I’ve never seen her so angry.”

  Jana sat down in Sue Ling’s seat and began clearing Sue’s things away, wadding up the napkin and corralling the crumbs into a neat pile.

  “She wanted me to look at Professor Forsythe’s manuscript,” I told her.

  “Is it bad?”

  “It’s not that it’s bad . . . it’s not my thing. It’s fiction.”

  “You mean it’s about angels.”

  For some reason the revelation that Jana knew of the professor’s fascination with angels took me by surprise. To me, it’s one of those things you don’t talk about with other people. Like personal finances. A person’s beliefs about angels and miracles and other biblical stuff is personal. “Sue has told you about the professor’s angels,” I said.

  “We’re friends. We talk about everything.”

  The comment was made as a casual remark, but it sat uneasily with me. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Sue Ling had already berated me based on Jana’s version of our high school dating experience.

  Jana was looking at the refrigerated display cases.

  “Would you like something?”

  I got her an orange juice and a low-cal oatmeal bar. As I set them in front of her I continued our conversation. “It doesn’t bother you that Sue Ling believes in angels?” I asked.

  “She calls them EDs.”

  “So she told me. But she’s a scientist. How can a scientist believe in all this supernatural stuff?”

  Jana picked at her oatmeal bar, placing a piece of oatmeal about the size of a molecule onto her tongue. She chewed. Swallowed. “Sue’s the most brilliant woman I’ve ever met.”

  “So you believe her? You believe in angels?”

  “Let’s just say I keep an open mind. If Sue is convinced they exist, who am I to discount them? I mean, as a reporter I interview all kinds of people. I once interviewed this guy at Qualcomm who attempted to describe to me quantum entanglement, where two particles are joined together in some weird way even though they’re separated by as much as a million miles.

  “Apparently, if you change one of them in some way, the other one instantly reflects that change. He said that scientists have done successful experiments on particles as far as sixty-two miles apart. He was all jazzed about it, saying that experiments would improve communications and make quantum computers possible. He claimed it may even make teleportation a reality. Did I understand everything he said? Of course not. Did I believe him? Why shouldn’t I? The guy knew what he was talking about. And anything that will eliminate the dead zone in Rose Canyon for my cell phone, I’m all for.”

  She pinched off another molecule, looked at it, and popped it in her mouth. She was refusing to look at me, which meant she was still miffed for my not going to Myles Shepherd’s funeral. But I wasn’t going to bring it up and I hoped she wouldn’t either.

  “Jana, I need your help,” I said, getting down to business.

  Still staring at her oatmeal bar as though it was the most fascinating oatmeal bar she’d ever seen, she said, “You flew all the way out here to ask for my help? Why didn’t you just pick up the phone? Two days ago you told me you had no plans to return to San Diego.”

  “Things changed,” I said.

  I hadn’t told Jana about the coded confession in my book. Had Sue Ling? Even though Jana said they shared everything, I doubted Sue had told her. Jana’s a reporter. If she knew about a threat to the president, she wouldn’t be acting aloof. Which meant she didn’t know about my access to the White House being cut off or my trip to Montana. So without revealing any of this to her, somehow I had to convince her to help me get close to the president.

  “Does this have anything to do with that silly death threat in your book?” Jana asked.

  I stared at her dumbly.

  She smiled. “I told you Sue and I tell each other everything.”

  My life suddenly got easier or more complicated depending on how she answered my next question. “Have you told anyone else?”

  Exasperated, she turned her attention away from her oatmeal bar to me. “Do you mean will you hear about it on the evening news? Of course not. I know you. It’s a prank. It’s not newsworthy unless you write for the tabloids, which I don’t.”

  Her news director might disagree with her, but I wasn’t going to press the point. “Thank you, but I fear it’s more than just a prank.”

  As briefly as I could, and speaking in a low whisper, I caught her up to date, everything that had happened since I learned about the coded message, including my interview with Doc Palmer.

  She wasn’t aloof anymore.

  “Grant! What have you gotten yourself involved with?” she cried.

  “That’s what I have to find out. And that’s why I need your help.”

  She shook her head while brushing crumbs from her hands. She shook her head while taking a sip of orange juice. “No . . . no . . . no . . . no, Grant. I will not help you assassinate the president.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I didn’t know the full story then.”

  “Jana! You know me. Do you really think I’m capable of assassinating the president?”

  In my exuberance I let my voice carry. A pair of shocked faces stared at us from behind the refrigerated display cases. “I’m a writer,” I explained to them. “We’re working on some dialogue for a novel.”

  The bakery employees nodded as though they believed me, but a spark of doubt remained in their eyes.

  “See?” Jana said. “That’s what I’m talking about. No, I don’t think you’re plotting to assassinate the president. But it doesn’t matter what I think. If something happens, it’ll appear you had something to do with it.”

  “What you think matters to me.”

  “Look at it from a reporter’s perspective. One, you confess to the killing in print. Two, the president himself warns you to stay away from San Diego, yet here you are. Three, you tried to break into the White House, and even though the Secret Service has warned you to keep your distance, you are currently trying to find a way to get close to the president.”

  “Do you think you can get me a press pass?”

  Jana raised her hands in exasperation.

  “OK . . . look at it from my perspective,” I pleaded. “Everything you said is true. Someone is setting me up. But I can’t just sit back and do nothing, can I? I have to find out who’s doing this to me and why so that I can clear myself.”

  “You could fly to Oakland,” Jana said.

  “Why Oakland?”

  “It’s not San Diego.”

  I reached across the table, across the oatmeal bar, and took Jana’s hand. “I nee
d your help,” I said. “The president will clear me, I know he will. All I have to do is get close enough to ask him.”

  “Close enough. How?”

  “With a press pass.”

  “Out of the question.” She pulled her hand away, pushed back her chair to leave.

  “At the fund-raisers,” I said. “Maybe I could get close to him there.”

  “Good luck,” Jana said.

  “Maybe I don’t have to get close enough to talk to him,” I said. “Just get his attention.”

  “How?”

  “Four words,” I said. “Doc Palmer is alive.”

  “Do you think it’ll work?”

  “If the president knows I know the truth about Vietnam and his drug problems, he’ll talk to me.”

  “Or eliminate you.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “A man doesn’t rise to his level of power without having the means to protect himself.”

  She had a point. Though I still didn’t want to admit it, Douglas wasn’t the man I’d portrayed in my book. “Are you going to help me?” I asked.

  “No. And I don’t know how long I can sit on this, Grant. I really don’t. Just Doc Palmer being alive . . . this is . . . this is big.”

  She gathered her things and walked out of Howard’s Bakery.

  By ten o’clock that night I was in bed, exhausted from the trip and from arguing with three women. Christina called just as I was settling into my hotel room.

  It was a quarter past five o’clock, a quarter past eight o’clock in Washington. Not until I heard “Hail to the Chief” did I remember she was expecting me to meet her for dinner at DeLugo’s.

  “Are you stuck in traffic?” she asked.

  “Sorry. I tried to call you.”

  “No problem. I got us a table. How long will you be?”

  “Christina, I’m not in Washington. I tried to tell you, but our conversation ended so quickly, and then you turned your phone off.”

  Silence.

  “Christina?”

  “Did you miss your connecting flight?”