Where Angels Fear to Tread (11 page)

The traffic in the hallways was considerably lighter at this hour, and Remy had no problem getting to Dr. Parsons' office. The door was open a crack, and he could hear talking from within as he approached. Peering inside, he could see the doctor talking on his cell, standing at his desk, the top of which looked as if a bomb had gone off, scattering papers everywhere.

The conversation sounded intense, and Remy could hear panic creeping into the physician's voice.

"I told you I'm trying," he was saying, nearly frantic. He fell silent, obviously listening to the voice on the other end of the line.

Remy could just about make out the hum of that voice, buzzing in the doctor's ear like a fly trapped between a screen and a storm window. He couldn't make out what it was saying, but it didn't sound the least bit pleased.

"I'm sorry," Parsons said with a pathetic whine. "Just give me another chance . . . please." He sounded ready to cry.

Then he began to paw through the papers on his desk. "I have some right here," he said, picking up a piece of construction paper with drawings on it.

One of Zoe's drawings.

"I'm trying to figure it out, but . . ."

The buzzing from the other side of the phone grew louder, more intense.

The expression on the doctor's face became pained, and he dropped down into his office chair.

"Please, just give me a chance. . . . Please. . . ."

And suddenly, as if in a fit of rage and despair, Parsons threw the cell phone against the nearby wall. He was sobbing as he pulled open a side drawer of his desk and removed a pair of scissors, trying to saw through the flesh of his wrist with one of the blades.

Remy instantly pushed open the door, strode across the office, and snatched the scissors from Parsons' hand. "I don't think you want to do that," he said, tossing the scissors to the floor.

Parsons stared at him for a moment, his face damp with tears. "I've tried so hard for her," he finally sobbed, covering his face with his hands, shaking his head as he cried.

And that was when Remy noticed the mark on the doctor's neck, a dark patch on the cocoa-colored flesh—shaped like a pair of pursed lips.

He called upon his angelic nature again, allowing his human senses to become something more. He sniffed at the air around the wailing doctor, taking the scent of the man into his lungs. He could smell his soul, but there was something not quite right about it.

It was damaged, traumatized.

"Get ahold of yourself," Remy said, moving around the desk and placing a hand on the doctor's shoulder.

Parsons lifted his head and looked at Remy. "I . . . don't know what to do," he said, turning his attention back to the desk. He began to shuffle through a pile of Zoe's drawings, looking at one colorful piece after another.

"They're supposed to help me," he said. "They're supposed to tell me how to find them."

"The girl and her father?" Remy asked.

"Yes," the doctor replied. "The answers are here, I'm sure of it, but I can't figure it out."

He was crying again, his teardrops staining the corners of the child's drawings.

"Is that why you sent those men to Frank's place?" Remy asked. "Did you tell them Frank would know where they were?"

Parsons looked up again, his eyes red and wet.

"I didn't want to disappoint her," he said, his voice quivering, and as he spoke he reached up to touch the mark staining the flesh of his neck. "I promised her. . . ."

"Who?" Remy asked. "Who did you promise?"

The man crumbled, sobbing and shaking.

"I can't," Parsons said, suddenly standing. "I can't do this anymore."

He lurched across the room, grabbing his suit jacket from the coatrack behind his door, and headed out into the hall.

Remy felt as if he were standing in a minefield, at first not quite sure how to proceed. Then he figured he had probably gotten as much as he could from the doctor; the man was an emotional wreck. He turned his attention to the desk and picked up Zoe's drawings.
Maybe I can find something that Parsons wasn't able to
, he thought, folding them up and placing them beneath his arm.

Remy left the office. Dr. Parsons was nowhere in sight, so he headed for the lobby and left the building, his mind once again ablaze with questions.

He was halfway to the street and his car when the sounds of commotion distracted him. He turned back to the hospital and saw people running toward the side of the building. Someone called out an order to dial 911; another voice screamed, "He fell off the roof !"

Before he even realized what he was doing, Remy was moving with the crowd as sirens filled the air with their banshee wails.

Still clutching the child's strangely portentous drawings, he made it to the edge of the gathering. A number of people were kneeling around something on the ground. And as one of them slowly rose to his feet, his form no longer obscuring Remy's view of a broken, bleeding body, he knew the victim wasn't some poor soul who had accidentally plummeted to his death, but someone who had been in the depths of remorse, so painful that the only way to relieve it was to end his worthless existence.

But by the look on Dr. Parsons' face, frozen in death, not even that had been enough to free him from his agony.

Remy sat on his rooftop patio with his closest human friend, a glass of Irish whiskey in his hand as he gazed out over the buildings of Beacon Hill to the Esplanade, almost visible through the hazy fog.

His mind wandered as he allowed the first few sips of Jameson to affect him. And as his thoughts strolled the night, and his mental guards fell, he could hear the prayers of the devoted and desperate all across the city.

The cacophony of voices filled his head to bursting, and he immediately pulled himself back, blocking out the petitions to a higher authority.

"What is it?" Mulvehill asked, reaching for the chilled bottle of whiskey in the center of the circular table. He slid the bottle over and then reached for the ice bucket, filling his glass with more cubes. It was so humid that the ice seemed to melt as quickly as he dropped it into his glass.

Remy took a sip from his drink and set it down on the tabletop. "I let my mind wander too far," he said. "Sometimes that's not such a good thing."

"Huh," Mulvehill said, filling his glass for a third time. "Thinking about stuff you don't want to think about?"

"Sometimes," Remy said, his eyes drawn to the city view again. "But if I'm not careful, I also hear things I don't want to hear."

"You're hearing voices now?" Mulvehill asked. He leaned back in his chair, resting his sweating tumbler on his rounded paunch of a belly. He picked up his already-lit cigarette and had a puff.

"Prayers," Remy said, swirling the liquid in his glass, making the ice tinkle like chimes. "I can hear the requests of all kinds of folks looking for a little divine intervention."

"Jesus," Mulvehill said, leaning his head against the back of the plastic chair and blowing smoke into the air. "That must get a little much."

Remy nodded. "It does, which is why most of the time I try to tune it out, but every once in a while I let my guard down and the solicitations come rolling in."

"What are they asking for . . . ? Like, to make sick family members well, or for the bank not to foreclose on their houses and stuff ?"

Remy nodded. "Sometimes, and sometimes they want God to help them get a new bike, or a puppy."

"I prayed for a bike once," Mulvehill said, then took a large gulp of his whiskey.

Remy glanced over at his friend. "Did you get it?"

"Naw." He shook his head. "I guess the Almighty figured I needed some new school uniforms more than a bike."

"The Almighty is very much into school uniforms," Remy said, confirming his friend's beliefs.

They both laughed then, mellowing out from the effects of their drinks.

"So nobody's really listening then," Mulvehill said, fishing another cigarette from the pack lying on the table.

Remy thought for a moment, not sure how to respond.

"No, not really," he finally said, turning his attention to his friend. "It's just sort of a hit-or-miss thing as to when someone's listening . . . and whether they decide to do anything about what they hear."

"Sounds complicated." Mulvehill finished what remained in his glass and reached across the table for more.

"Yeah," Remy agreed, his thoughts drifting in the direction of ancient times, when he'd first left Paradise to make the world of man his home. "It always was."

Mulvehill helped himself to some more ice, and yet another splash of whiskey. "More?" He held the bottle out to Remy.

"You know I prayed you'd ask me that," Remy said, sliding his glass within reach.

Mulvehill obliged him with ice and booze.

"And I decided to answer."

The homicide cop slid the glass back to the angel.

"So, Frank Downes," Mulvehill began, settling back in his chair.

"Very dead," Remy added.

"He certainly was," Mulvehill agreed. "And what exactly did you have to do with his untimely demise?"

"Absolutely nothing," Remy explained. "I asked him some questions about a missing person's case I'm working on, and when he wasn't forthcoming with the info, I followed him to see if he'd lead me to a clue."

"Okay." Mulvehill nodded. "So how did he end up murdered?"

"We finally ended up at his building and I was going to call it quits for the night, but then four guys decided they needed something from Frank too, only they forced themselves into his apartment."

"And you decided to check this situation out, instead of calling law enforcement," Mulvehill suggested, waving his lit cigarette around.

"I wasn't sure what was going down, so I decided to go it alone," Remy agreed. "I probably should have given the PD a call."

"Yeah, you probably should have." Mulvehill had some more whiskey. "You didn't happen to use that UPS trick to get into the building, did you?"

"I most certainly did," Remy said.

"Thought so." His friend nodded. "Lady on the second floor said she thought she was getting a delivery but saw an unfamiliar guy heading up the stairs."

"That would have been me," Remy said.

"No shit."

Remy chuckled. "Anything on the guy who dropped his wallet? What was his name . . . Bohadock?"

"Derrick Bohadock. Reported missing last month by his wife of sixteen years. Supposedly disappeared on his way home from a business trip to the Philippines."

"Really?" Remy took a sip from his drink. "Kind of odd that he would show up as part of a kill squad in Boston, don't you think?"

"It is kinda funny."

"He had a strange mark on the back of his hand," Remy said, rubbing the back of his own. "Lip marks . . . as if left by a kiss."

"Like a tattoo?" Mulvehill questioned.

"I only got a quick glimpse of it, but it seemed more like a burn . . . a brand maybe. And that doctor who supposedly sent these guys after Frank had one on his neck." Remy pointed to an area below his ear.

"The one who took a swan dive off the roof of Franciscan Hospital for Children?" Mulvehill asked. "I suppose you were questioning him about this missing persons case too?"

"Yeah, I was," Remy acknowledged.

"You realize I should probably arrest you right now on suspicion of murder," Mulvehill said, setting down his empty glass.

"There isn't a jail around that could hold me, copper," Remy said in a pathetic attempt at an Edward G. Robinson imitation.

"Hey, that's pretty good," Mulvehill said. "I didn't know you could do Katharine Hepburn."

"Go screw yourself," Remy said with a laugh.

"Didn't she say that to Henry Fonda in
On Golden Pond
?"

They were both laughing now. It was times like these when it all made sense to Remy; why he stayed upon the planet wearing a guise of humanity. He'd never had a friend like Mulvehill in Heaven, and Katharine Hepburn jokes were completely out of the question.

"So this case you're working on," Mulvehill began as their laughter died down.

"Yeah?" Remy asked. The ice in his glass had melted to nothing, and he drained some of the liquid and tiny pieces of cold into his mouth.

"I'm guessing it's another one of
those
cases," he said, putting air quotations around the word
those
.

"I wasn't completely sure at first," Remy said, "but the more I poke around, the stranger it becomes."

"I think it's you," Mulvehill said. "If somebody else were investigating this case . . ."

"Katharine Hepburn?"

"Especially Katharine Hepburn. If she were investigating this case, it would be so normal, it'd be boring."

"Maybe, but then again, maybe not," Remy said. "We live in interesting times now, my friend."

"What're you, Confucius now? Face it, you attract weird like a magnet." The homicide detective stood and stretched. "I gotta get outta here," he said, glancing at his watch and then snatching up his pack of cigarettes from the table. "Duty calls in less than four hours."

"It's not my fault, you know," Remy told him. "I've told you how the world has changed since that business with the Apocalypse and—"

"And I don't want to hear it," Mulvehill interrupted, throwing up a hand. "The less I know, the more surprised I can continue to be when this shit gets weirder."

"Suit yourself," Remy told him.

They were heading toward the stairs that would take them back into Remy's building, when Marlowe made an appearance in the doorway, a stuffed monkey clutched in his mouth.

His tail was wagging furiously.

"Well, look who it is," Mulvehill said as Marlowe trotted to him for an ear scratch. "A little late for the party, aren't you?"

The dog tried to answer, but the stuffed animal in his mouth was making it impossible to understand him.

"If you're going to talk, you're gonna have to drop the monkey," Remy told him.

Marlowe dropped the monkey to the floor of the deck. "
New toy
," he said excitedly, swatting at it with his paw.

"That isn't new," Remy said. "It's just been lost behind the couch."