Deception (38 page)

35

“That hurts my pride, Watson. It is a petty feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride.”

S
HERLOCK
H
OLMES
,
T
HE
F
IVE
O
RANGE
P
IPS

T
UESDAY
, D
ECEMBER
24, 7:30
P.M
.

KENDRA
ARRIVED
at the old brownstone for Christmas Eve dinner, bringing a vegetable stew, a fruit salad with watermelon and grapes and pineapple, and a festive display of raw vegetables, including minicarrots and those little jobbers that look like corn on the cob. I pulled out some Thousand Island dressing for dip, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Bing Crosby was dreaming of a White Christmas, and Nat King Cole sang about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Kendra pretended that wasn’t cool, but eventually sang along. And when the snow started falling, we stood on my deck and enjoyed it together. Kendra insisted we hear from Bing again. It was just my little girl and me and Mulch and the snow and the music. It was Christmas, and I didn’t want it to end and tried to stop reminding myself it would.

We sat on the couch, her under her mom’s blue Seahawks blanket, me covered with Mulch. We reminisced about Christmases past and how her mom always loved watching
It’s a Wonderful Life
with Jimmy Stewart. Kendra opened a Target gift card from me and a scarf she’d never wear. I opened up a Best Buy gift card from her and a tie I’ll never wear. Our hearts overflowed with yuletide thanks.

Kendra also gave me
It’s a Wonderful Life
on DVD, beaming in light of our remembrances, and one other gift. At first I thought it was a big red handkerchief. Then I saw it had a point and “Merry Christmas” embroidered on it in green letters.

“Put it on, Dad.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We watched Jimmy Stewart and laughed and cried and ate popcorn and talked about the movie and her job and her pregnancy and how she missed her mother and sister, all with a tray of rabbit food in front of us, Mulch wondering when the baby back ribs were coming, and me wearing an elf hat.

W
EDNESDAY
, D
ECEMBER
25, 7:30
A.M
.

I sat in my UCLA Bruins sweatshirt in Carly Woods’s room at Adventist Medical Center. Her face was pale, eyes red. After their Christmas Eve celebration, at 3:00 a.m., when most bad things happen, she’d had a seizure.

Janet and Jake insisted on stepping out of the room to grab something to eat. They took Carly’s boy, Finney. An empty Christmas stocking hung from the tray, which had a cup of ice water on it, surrounded by some wrapping paper and candy.

“Want a Whitman’s Sampler?” Carly asked. I declined. “Milk Duds?” Shook my head. “You’re looking at my Whoppers, aren’t you?”

“Okay,” I said, holding out my hand. She filled it.

“What’d you get for Christmas?” I asked.

“Some CDs and clothes, but best of all, books.” She pointed at the stack. They included a slipcased set of the Chronicles of Narnia and
Perelandra, The Problem of Pain
, and
Mere Christianity
.

“A C. S. Lewis theme,” I said. I noticed there were no books by Bertrand Russell and decided he wasn’t a popular writer for people in hospitals.

“Two were presents. I asked Dad to bring the rest. I wanted to reread them.
The Problem of Pain
is pretty relevant right now.” She smiled like she had no reason not to. “Have you read the Narnia stories?”

“I saw the first movie.”

“What’d you think of Aslan?”

“What about him?”

“Wouldn’t you like to meet him?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“He’s Jesus, you know.”

“I was thinking of him as a lion. King, protector, defender of justice.”

“He’s all that and more. Have you thought about the self-restraint and love it took for Aslan to let the witch and the evil creatures beat him up and shave him and kill him so he could take the punishment Edmund deserved?”

I nodded.

“The real King didn’t just die for Edmund. He died for me. And you.”

“I never argue with young women in hospitals.”

“I can take it. Argue with me.”

“I’m glad you find comfort in it. But to me, it’s just a story.”

“Some stories aren’t true. Some are. This one is.”

I looked at her, wanting both to agree and to argue.

“Let me read you something.” She picked up her copy of
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
and flipped back a few pages from the dog-ear.

“When the Beavers first tell the children about Aslan, Susan asks this question:

“Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

“What does it mean that he’s not safe?” I asked.

“For one thing,” Carly said, “I love Him, and I’m dying.” She laughed without a hint of cynicism. “He’s faithful, but not predictable. I know He loves me; I know I’ll go to heaven. I know the best is yet to come. But I also know that meanwhile, life here under the curse isn’t real easy.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“We can ask Him to take away pain and suffering and death, but for now it’s part of our lives. But He’s going to get rid of it, once and for all. I was reading this morning in Isaiah 25 … pass me my Bible, would you?”

She took it with both hands, so frail I cringed. “I’ll read you three verses, where He’s talking about the new earth:

On this mountain the L
ORD
Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign L
ORD
will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The L
ORD
has spoken. In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the L
ORD
, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

“A banquet?” I asked. “Best meats? Finest wines?”

“I thought that might get your attention.”

“My grandmother, who was a church warden or something, never talked about feasts and wine. She just warned against gluttony and drunkenness.”

“Right now I don’t have an appetite,” Carly said, “so I’m thinking about God swallowing up death forever and wiping away the tears. I can’t tell you what that means to me.”

She reached her hand out. I held it, so delicate and fragile.

She said, “I asked Mom and Dad to leave when you got here because I wanted to make you an offer.”

“An offer?”

“You probably don’t think I have much to offer right now, but really I do.”

“I’m listening.”

“If you want me to … I could say hi to Aunt Sharon for you.”

“Carly, stop it.”

“I could give her a hug for you.”

“But … I mean.” I put my face in my right hand, still holding hers with my left. “Yeah. Hug Sharon for me.”

“You know, you can go to heaven some day, Uncle Ollie. Then you can hug her yourself.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“The clock’s not ticking just for me,” she said. “You spend your life around dying people. You should know.”

“You never give up on me, do you, Carly?”

“Nope. Neither does Little Finn. Or Dad. I know I’m going to see Mom and Dad and Finney and Uncle Clarence there some day. I’m going to see Uncle Finney real soon, I think. And I really want to see you again too.” A little tear fell from one of her Bambi eyes. “I want to see you in heaven.”

She squeezed my hand. There was no strength in me. But in that weak little hand I felt a superhuman strength.

“You know what you need to do, don’t you?” she asked.

“Trust. Believe. Accept. Confess. Repent.” I recited the checklist.

“Wow.” She grinned. “Not bad.”

“I can repeat what your dad’s been telling me for years. Doing it’s the problem.”

“Why?”

“Okay, if there’s a God and He loves you, then why are you … like this?”

“Dying? It’s okay, you can say it.”

“I don’t want to say it.”

“I’ll say it. I’m dying. Can’t say it’s fun. I mean, I’d rather be playing tennis or at the mall. But then if I was, I wouldn’t be talking with you like this, would I? And I wouldn’t be spending hours with my parents every day. And I wouldn’t be seeing Mom and Dad care for Finney. Sad as I am about leaving my son behind, I know that soon I’ll be happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

“You really believe that.”

“I really do.”

“Wish I could.”

“You can.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“I didn’t say it was easy. It’s your choice. Make it while you still can.” She smiled. “You like being the rogue, the unbeliever, the black sheep. Kind of your identity, isn’t it? I know you get tired of people saying they’re praying for you. So I won’t say it.”

“Thanks for restraining yourself.”

She laughed. “You’re funny. You’re just a teddy bear. You’re this big skeptic with all your tough questions and smart remarks. I love you.”

In a flash I saw Kendra as a four-year-old saying she loved me. When I heard Carly say it, I felt like she was my daughter. I didn’t want to lose her. I could barely see her now. Something was in my eyes. Carly leaned forward. I felt her arms around me. She couldn’t squeeze me, but I squeezed her, gently.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’m going to be fine. I really am. And I’m going to give Sharon a really big hug for you.”

I stumbled out the door. Carly was on the inside of something, and I was on the outside. And I knew, without doubt, she was in a far better place. Part of me wanted to join her there, and part of me just wanted to run to the elevator. Instead I walked briskly. When I got to the parking lot, snow pelting me, washing my face, I ran to the car.

I sat there, head against the steering wheel, smelling wet upholstery, and wondering why that dying girl was so much happier than I was … so much happier than I’ve ever been.

36

“Stand at the window here. Was there ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the duncoloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? … Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth.”

S
HERLOCK
H
OLMES
,
T
HE
S
IGN OF
F
OUR

T
HURSDAY
, D
ECEMBER
26, 9:30
A.M
.

CHRISTMAS
DAY
had been a disappointment. Kendra, long ago, had planned to be with a friend’s family. I was grateful we’d had Christmas Eve together, but Christmas was an anticlimax. Mulch and I lounged around the brownstone after my visit to Carly. Bing and Nat weren’t enough to pick us up. Not even Alvin and the Chipmunks singing “Christmas, Don’t Be Late.” Mulch loves those Chipmunks, but the merriment was fleeting. The snow stopped falling. As the day spent itself, the gray morphed into darkness.

In those hours of melancholy I decided that Sharon was Christmas, and Christmas died with her. Mulch’s eyes were pitiful, like he was remembering bygone days as a Russian refugee. Dogs can’t be happy when their people are sad.

I turned on the radio to the all-Christmas-all-the-time station and heard Andy Williams croon, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” I turned it off. I agree with the sentiment, when Christmas is still ahead. But when it actually comes, I ask myself,
Is this all?
Why is it so much better in the anticipating than in the reality? Or is there a reality that’s supposed to last beyond the day itself?

I understand why the suicide rate’s higher on holidays. Ironically, so’s the murder rate. People alone kill themselves. People together kill each other. What a messed up world. We could use a new one.

I read Sherlock Holmes’s
The Red-Headed League
for the sixth time. (I put a checkmark on the stories every time I read them.) Sometimes they pull me up. But not on a lonely Christmas. If Christmas can be lonely, what hope is there for other days?

The more I drank the darker it felt, until I stopped feeling. The bottle never brings happiness, but it can cover misery for a while.

Thursday morning I dragged myself to the office, bleary-eyed. Forty ounces of coffee hadn’t facilitated a resurrection. I drank the last twelve ounces without looking at the mug any more than I’d look at a needle when the nurse gives me a shot. If there were a caffeine IV, I’d have plugged in.

I sat there alone, I don’t know how long, the Christmas blues and the hangover keeping me from focusing on the case.

I remembered my grandmother talking to me about heaven once. We’d no longer have these corrupt bodies, she said. We’d no longer be doing earthly things like eating or drinking or going to carnivals or pizza joints.

I asked her if we’d be able to swim, run, and play baseball. She said we’d no longer want to do worldly things like that. All we’d want to do is sing and play zithers and go to church. That sealed it for me. I didn’t want to go to heaven.

Strange how Grandma talked about heaven but made me not want to go there. Obadiah Abernathy, on the other hand, was one of the few who made me want to go there. Most people I’d never want to spend a day with. It takes a rare person to make me think I’d enjoy spending forever with them.

When Clarence showed up, it was obvious his Christmas had been better than mine. He nearly bordered on being cheerful. Trying to cure that, I said, “Mark Twain claimed it was heaven for atmosphere but hell for company.”

“Meaning what?” Clarence asked, in a voice that makes Darth Vader sound like he’s in the Vienna Boys Choir.

“Meaning that heaven might keep your feet from the fire, but you’ll have more fun with your buddies in hell.”

“You think anyone will have fun in hell? It’s God who made fun. He invented laughter. God has a sense of humor. The devil doesn’t.”

I kept thinking about that dream. And hearing the voice of Obadiah Abernathy: “Can’t get on board widout yo’ ticket.”

I didn’t tell Clarence about the dream, for the same reason I wouldn’t hand ammo to someone pointing his gun at me.

Obadiah Abernathy shook his head. “I loves that man, but he gots it all wrong. It’s You he should be thinkin’ ’bout. With You, any place is heaven. Widout You, any place is hell. And hell’s got nothin’ to offer nobody, that’s fo’ sure.”

“You’re a loyal servant, Obadiah.” The Carpenter laughed and put His arm around him. “Ollie Chandler’s mostly wrong, yet … he’s closer to being right than you think.”

“What do you mean?”

“He saw something in you. He saw
Me
in you.”

“He did?”

The Carpenter smiled. “Those most like Me never seem to realize it. They’re more aware of their failings.”

“That’s somethin’ I knowed plenty ’bout.”

“Yes. And I love you for it. Ollie Chandler’s far from Me, yet not so far. For in Me he moves and breathes and has his being. He loves what he does because I’m in it. He loves logic and deductions and the exhilaration of search and discovery, all from Me. What he hates about life is the part that’s not from Me. Even what he loves in food and football is a reflection of the way I made him and the earth itself.”

“I saw You in baseball, Lord, all those years. I played it for You, You know I did. It drew me closer to You, my sweet Jesus. Some of us ball players been talkin’, You know.”

“Yes, I know.” His smile broke out again.

“We’re thinkin’ on the new earth there’ll maybe be baseball again.”

“Can you think of a single reason why there wouldn’t be?”

“Before I got here, I could have thought of some. Now I can’t.”

“Ollie’s love for sports is a love for being connected, being part of a team with a common goal. I made your bodies and minds to reach upward, to improve, excel, have dominion, find joy and pleasure in the small and large. To see and draw close to Me.”

“I don’ think I really knowed that.”

“You sensed it. And you lived it. Ollie saw Me in you. So you see, it’s not only you he wants to be with. It’s Me.”

“But he doesn’t know that.”

“No. Clarence and Jake and Carly and the others must help him understand. I’ve put them there for him. It’s their job to point him to Me, just as you did.”

“What a wondrous job that is,” Obadiah said, smiling remarkably like the One he spoke to. “What a truly wondrous job.”

An e-mail appeared from Carp. It said “Photos attached.” Manny had collected the originals, all taken in Palatine’s living room, from various people, including Palatine’s sister-in-law. I’d asked Carp to enlarge them, hoping to find what was in the “missing picture.” I clicked open Photoshop.

Doyle stood with a cup in his hand and pretended he wasn’t staring at my screen. I turned the screen away from him.

The first three pictures were terrible, but Carp had ordered them worst to best. The fifth picture was clear enough to make out a blonde and a brunette by the professor, but the facial features were indiscernible.

I felt a presence behind me and turned to see Tommi.

“Pictures?” she asked. “Family?”

“This is private, Tommi. Sorry.” She walked away, pretending her feelings weren’t hurt.

I called up the last picture, which was slightly better overall. The jewelry was a little clearer, including the chain necklace. Still, these could be any of a million girls. Whoever they were, the killer had wanted this picture—and not wanted the homicide detectives to see it.

What I’d give for clarity. I was so close I could taste it.

I decided to print it anyway, on the color printer by the copy machine. When I went to get it, Chris Doyle bumped shoulders with me.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Watch where you’re going.” That’s when I realized he’d done it deliberately.

“Got a problem with me, Chris?”

“Everybody’s got a problem with you.”

“Just doing my job.”

“You’re doing a lousy job. And we’re sick and tired of you.”

I thought of eight different ways I could take him. But I had other things on my mind.

Chris Doyle, the Pillsbury Doughboy, was wearin’ cheese underwear and walkin’ down rat alley.

He was beggin’ for a whuppin’.