Steel Breeze

by Douglas Wynne

  Desmond rested his wrist on the table, his fingers curled loosely around the handle of his coffee mug, inches from the laptop. He tried to read Fournier’s face—bushy moustache and eyebrows, flinty hazel eyes that belonged in a poker game. Desmond considered himself a pretty good observer of human behavior and facial expressions, but all he could read on Chuck Fournier was the plain fact that the detective was also reading him and making no bones about it. But that was nothing new. Fournier had been appraising Desmond with that same cold, calculating eye ever since Sandy had first introduced the two men.

  Fournier swiped the heel of his hand across his nose to relieve an itch he couldn’t scratch while handling the prints. He sniffed, and then speaking in a low voice—possibly because Lucas was still sleeping upstairs or possibly because Chuck Fournier always spoke in a low tone—said, “You wanted me here in an ‘unofficial capacity,’ you said. Like how they talk on TV. Why?”

  “I wanted your opinion on this before I take any action…as a friend of the family.”

  “A friend with a fingerprint kit and a database. Look, Desmond, you can’t have it both ways. And I don’t really buy this line about my opinion. You’re a guy claiming a break-in, right? So you think this a crime scene.”

  Desmond flinched at the use of that word from a year ago to describe the apartment. “I don’t know. All I know is that the back door is unlocked, and I locked it last night. And I sure didn’t type those lines.”

  “Do you know how it looks: you asking to meet with the lead investigator on your wife’s murder case alone? You asking to see her ex-boyfriend alone for that matter?”

  Desmond straightened his posture. “Chuck, I know you cared for Sandy, so I assume you care about her son. Lucas was too young to understand most of what was said back when there were cops all over us, but that would be different now, and my job is to protect him.”

  Fournier placed his fingertips on the laptop and watched Desmond uncurl his own from his mug handle. “I think what you’re trying to protect is your privacy. What are you afraid of, Des?”

  “I don’t want Lucas finding out that I think someone broke into our apartment, okay? I don’t want to scare him.”

  “And you’re afraid of me reading what else is on this computer. Right?”

  “It’s my work. I need that to make a living.”

  “And you believe someone tampered with it just to fuck with you?”

  “Someone may be stalking us. It’s on a wireless network. Can you tell me if it’s possible for someone to hack in and change my file while the computer’s in sleep mode?”

  “I don’t know. I’d have to get a computer forensics guy in here to check out your security…or bag up all your gear and take it with me.” Fournier said with a grin.

  Desmond ran his hand through his hair and stared at the laptop.

  “Listen, Des…this kind of thing—somebody playing a prank by typing a poem on your machine—it wouldn’t get police resources if Sandy wasn’t a murder victim. But you ought to know by now that when that happened, your family’s privacy became a thing of the past. Tossed out in service to the truth. So are you asking me to be a cop and find out the truth about a cyber-breach, maybe even a break-in? Because if you’re not, then my job here is to find out what you’re playing at.”

  Desmond sighed and deflated into a slouch in the rickety vinyl-upholstered kitchen chair. “Alright, look: I make shit up for a living, but stuff from real life is grist for the mill. It’s a personal process, and frankly I don’t want you or some FBI profiler going through it, taking things out of context.”

  Fournier nodded. “I see…mining your family tragedy for literary gold is a very personal process.”

  Desmond looked at a spot on the table and shook his head. “I should know better. I shouldn’t have called you.”

  “But you did. For Lucas’s sake, help me understand before I make some choices here. Is there more to this than just a few lines on a computer that make no fucking sense whatsoever? I mean…it’s not exactly an explicit threat.”

  “Drake is a word for duck. The lines describe a duck floating on the water and eating a worm. There are a couple of reasons why that alarmed me.”

  Fournier waved his pen over his pad as if he were stirring a pot, one bushy eyebrow cocked.

  “A male duck alone could be a reference to me as a widower…but the word drake, is also an old word for dragon.”

  “And?”

  “Dragons are prominent in Japanese art.”

  “Seems a little thin, Des. But you’re the one with the symbolism college credits. What’s the other thing?”

  “Yesterday at the playground Lucas wandered off, and I found him with a guy in a hoodie, looking at a male duck floating in a puddle. The guy ran away when I came near. I didn’t see his face.”

  “Shit, Desmond, you’ve been saving that for last?”

  “It seems like the haiku is meant to tell me that the same guy who could have taken Lucas yesterday can also get into our house if he wants to.”

  Fournier whistled. “How the hell did a guy make off with your kid, anyway? Weren’t you watching him?”

  Desmond averted his gaze from the laptop.

  “You were writing?”

  “I was right next to the sandbox.”

  “Yeah, that helped. I should confiscate this thing just for that.”

  “The guy took off when I showed up. I think he’s trying to get my attention, but I don’t know why. I mean, wouldn’t it be easier to hurt us without warning?”

  “Yeah. Did you set the computer down when you were looking for Lucas? Was there an opportunity for someone—this hoodie guy, or an accomplice—to type on it at the park?”

  “No, I had it on me the whole time.”

  “Because you wouldn’t want to risk losing something so precious.”

  “Fuck you, Chuck. If you don’t want to help, I think we’re done.”

  “Too close to home? You more involved with your work than you are with your boy?”

  “I didn’t ask for your opinion on my parenting. Are you a cop or a social worker?”

  “Thought you didn’t want me here in an official role. Doesn’t that make this a social call?”

  Desmond did his best to glower at Fournier, but he couldn’t hold the stare.

  Fournier burped. “Alright, you keep the machine for now. I’ll get a guy over here to check it for remote hacks, but if you want me to post a detail on your street, you are not only going to have to report this—Oh my God, look at ‘im.”

  Desmond turned in his chair to follow Fournier’s line of sight to the stairs. Lucas was sitting on the balding carpet runner, mid-flight, clutching one of his action figures, sleep clinging to his eyes. “Hey, little man,” Fournier said. “You got big since the last time I saw you.”

  Desmond got up from the table and went to sit on one of the lower steps. He touched the unruly hair on the back of Lucas’s head and kissed him on the temple. “Good morning, buddy. You want some water?”

  Lucas shook his head almost imperceptibly. In a whisper, he asked, “Daddy, who is that?”

  Fournier waved a meaty hand. “I’m Chuck. I’m an old friend of your mom.”

  Lucas slid down a couple of steps on his bottom, and snuggled his head into Desmond’s armpit.

  Fournier said, “I heard you saw a duck at the playground yesterday.”

  Lucas didn’t acknowledge the comment, kept his face pressed against his father’s t-shirt.

  “Is that right, Lucas? You saw a duck?”

  At the pizza place Desmond had already quizzed Lucas about everything the man had said, as well as his hair and eye colors, which Lucas had said were, “all brownish, I think.” Lucas had said that he’d gone to collect acorns under the trees and found the man lurking there, with his back turned to the trail. As Lucas approached, the man had asked if he wanted to see a duck, had jogged down the trail, pointed at the puddle, and said that it was a Daddy duck, you could tel
l because of the green head. Lucas had asked, “Where’s the Mama duck?” And the man had replied that she was gone. Then he had turned to look at Lucas, and that was when Lucas saw that he had “a mad face,” and it scared him. That was when Desmond had arrived, and the man had run away.

  Fournier said, “Lucas, if I came to visit you again, with a man who draws pictures, do you think you could tell him how to draw a picture of the man who showed you the duck?”

  Lucas nestled his head deeper into Desmond’s breast and gave a negative shake. Then he pulled his chin back and said, “Daddy?”

  “Yes, buddy?”

  “It broke.”

  “What broke?”

  Lucas lifted his toy up to his father’s face and said, “Rocket Boy Bob broke.”

  The figure’s head was gone, snapped clean off. Lucas started to cry.

  * * *

  At the police station Desmond waited with stale coffee and a stack of even staler magazines. The coffee was his third cup of the day and he was drinking it mostly just to keep himself occupied, even though he knew it would only make him jittery and probably more paranoid than he already was. If that was possible. Fournier had suggested that Lucas might give a more accurate description if his father wasn’t watching him. “Kids try to say what they think their parents want to hear. Don’t worry; this guy is good with kids. He won’t scare him; he’ll make it like a game.”

  Desmond didn’t know if that was the real reason they were interviewing Lucas alone. Probably only part of it. He had regretted consenting as soon as Fournier disappeared behind a frosted glass door with his hand on Lucas’s shoulder, and now he waited with his leather laptop bag resting between his feet like a napping dog.

  When the door opened again and Fournier waved him in, he found the room empty except for a table with a manila folder on it. No artist, no pencils, no Lucas.

  “Where’s Lucas?” Desmond asked, stepping around the table toward the only other door.

  Fournier raised a placating hand. “He’s fine. I just want to talk to you about the sketch.”

  Desmond pointed at the folder. “Is that it?”

  “Yeah.” Fournier pulled a chair out for Desmond to sit in, but Desmond ignored it. He’d been sitting for over an hour and he didn’t feel like settling now. He just wanted to satisfy his curiosity and then see Lucas as soon as possible. He felt Fournier’s eyes on him as he opened the cover of the folder. He was thinking that the whole presentation was typical police theater, that the only reason to have the sketch in a folder was to frame his reaction to it when he flipped it open, but he’d no sooner formed the thought than he saw the page inside and recoiled in shock.

  There was nothing ordinary about this face.

  He had a mad face.

  Desmond had chalked up the description to a four-year-old’s limited vocabulary, but now he saw that it was spot on. The face was mad, all right. Mad in every sense.

  “Have you ever seen this before?” Fournier asked.

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean not this one in particular, but I’m sure I’ve seen something like it.”

  “Where?”

  “Same as you… movies, art, I don’t know, maybe a museum.”

  “And what would you say it is?”

  “It’s a samurai battle mask. The guy in the hoodie was wearing a samurai mask?”

  “That’s what Lucas saw.”

  “And the dolls. The decapitated dolls, and the haiku. Chuck… it has to be the guy. It has to be Sandy’s killer.”

  “Whoa.” Fournier rested his knuckles on the table and leaned in. “Even if I was willing to consider that we put away the wrong guy—“

  “What other possibility is there?”

  “Could be that some sicko who followed it in the news is playing a cruel trick on you…. Or it could be more complicated.”

  Desmond tore his gaze away from the drawing and squinted at Fournier. “You mean like me planting the haiku and headless toys and working with an accomplice in a mask to manufacture a suspect?”

  “You came up with that scenario pretty fast. Anything to it?”

  “I have a wild imagination, but yours is.... I want to see my son. Now.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  Chapter 3

  Shaun Bell climbed the basement stairs. His steps slowed as he reached the top, his calves heavy, his muscles sore from training and lifting. He thought about how the high ceiling of the basement meant that there were more steps to climb. It wasn’t easy finding a house with a high-ceilinged basement, but they had done it twice now, once on each coast. It made for some inventive conversations with realtors. Of course, a deep basement wasn’t the only important criteria; there were also privacy concerns.

  Sensei had handled the realtors, but Shaun had listened attentively. There was purpose in everything Sensei did and said. Nothing lazy, no words wasted. Even what seemed like idle chit-chat served a purpose. So Shaun Bell had learned the art of negotiation just as he had learned the art of tea and the art of harmonizing body, mind, and blade. In all of these, the kihon, the fundamentals, were the same: composure, intent, gauging proximity, and acting mindfully.

  But lately, hesitation had crept into his heart like a black-clad intruder. Some of his actions these past few days had been spontaneous in the wrong way, arising from impulses that were at odds with his sworn purpose. He reached the landing, took a rag from his back pocket, and wrapped it around the doorknob. He drew a long cleansing breath before opening the door and banishing the betrayals from his mind on the exhalation.

  In the kitchen he washed the blood from his hands. From the sink he glimpsed Sensei, seated in the kneeling position on the tatami mat in the empty den. Sensei had already changed into his black gi and hakama—the elbow-length sleeves and pleated skirt-pants of a warrior. His eyes were closed in meditation, and his short sword lay beside his knees on the mat. A dissonant tingle ran down Shaun’s spine at the sight of it.

  Shaun prepared the white tea in the ceramic kettle. There was a coffee maker on the counter as well, but they never used it. Shaun supposed they kept it as a prop, like the television and so many other things Sensei had acquired to dress the house in the trappings of an ordinary western life: photos of grandchildren who did not exist, gadgets, magazines, and DVDs. All purchased for the same reason as blue jeans and sneakers—to complete a disguise. Just as one couldn’t walk the streets in a hakama without attracting unwanted attention, neither could one keep a house adorned with nothing but calligraphy, an incense burner, and an antique tea set. If the police should come calling on people of Japanese ancestry, it was best to be able to offer them a cup of coffee.

  Shaun had been nine years old when 9/11 happened. By the time he got to high school there were already paragraphs in history books about racial profiling. He knew the issue was sensitive, but he wasn’t naïve. When a killer telegraphed an obsession with the symbols and weapons of a particular race, the FBI would have no compunction about interviewing local people who belonged to that race. They would come knocking; it was only a question of when. When they did pay a visit to the old Japanese man and his young Caucasian tenant, a house devoid of all Japanese culture might be just as suspicious as one with no American junk. So the grass tatami mats shared the den with a throw rug, the rock garden coexisted with the statue of St. Francis the previous owner had left beside the doorstep, and the painting of the bodhisattva Fudo Myoto with his chain and flaming sword added color to the hallway among the fake family photos. Shaun walked past these now on the way to his bedroom where his own gi and hakama hung in the closet.

  There was just enough time to dress before the tea was ready. Shaun didn’t wear a watch, but he had an innate sense of how long the leaves needed to steep in the same way that a man who wakes to an alarm every morning will eventually find his eyes opening at the same time even when the clock is removed. There had been a time, long ag
o, when he’d used a thermometer to make the tea. That was back in California. When I was an American, he thought, and caught himself. Of course, he was still an American by law—an American who could tell when the tea was ready by its color and aroma and, if he was out of the room, by the clock in his gut.

  He slipped into the kimono and tied the elaborate straps of the obi sash and hakama pants with quick, nimble fingers. He straightened the pleats, swatted lint from the black silk, and appraised himself in the mirror. His dirty-blonde hair was getting long. He would have to cut it soon. Or maybe let it grow out so he could put it in a topknot. Never in public, of course. His stomach fluttered. Time to bring the tea.

  In the den he placed the tray on the floor between the two mats. He had bowed in the archway upon entering, even though Sensei couldn’t see the gesture with his eyes closed. Now Sensei opened them, and Shaun executed the formal kneeling bow: left hand touching the floor first, then right, eyes level, but head low. He poured Sensei’s tea into a cup the color of lapis lazuli and placed it into the master’s hands. Sensei’s impassive face moved ever so slightly with the ripple of an almost invisible smile. It was a strange smile, like a mirage in the steam wafting up from the cup. Every time Shaun saw it, he wondered if it had really been there.

  Sensei waited for his acolyte to pour his own cup. Then, in synchrony, they tasted the tea in silence.

  Sensei said, “You obtained the target I requested?”

  “Hai, Sensei. It is prepared as you wished.”

  Sensei’s wakizashi rested in its sheath on the floor between them, and Bell noticed that, for the first time in their long friendship, it was oriented with the blade edge facing away from Sensei’s own body, the handle near his right hand. So that was what had felt so discordant. From their very first day of training, Sensei had arranged his sword on the mat according to the traditional etiquette: the mirror opposite of this, with the blade transmitting peaceful intentions, as it would be difficult to draw it quickly on the person seated opposite. Difficult, but not impossible for Sensei, and now—placed in this more threatening orientation—very easy indeed.