Steel Breeze (15 page)

“Take
a seat. I'm Detective Sanborn. You might remember me.”

“I
do.” Desmond said. “You're one of the guys who didn't catch my wife's killer.”

Sanborn
put his hands on the back of the chair opposite Desmond and looked at him with
tired, hooded eyes. “Lot of people think that now,” he said. “Lot of guys
around here feel guilty about not being able to prove it was you. Might have
saved Phil's life.”

Sanborn
slid the chair out from under the table and sat down, folded his hands and
twitched a finger at the blank paper. “Why don't you write it all down for me,
Desmond. How you killed your wife and father‐in-law. Proving that you did it is
pretty much a done deal, but
why
is still a matter of interpretation,
and I figure you had your reasons.”

“Reasons?”

“Sure.
There's always a reason. You felt they wronged you in some way. You can get it
off your chest now, so people don't just think you're a nut job. You're an
artist, right? A writer. You think in terms of…poetic justice, right? So you
probably had reasons. Why don't you share them with me? Do what you're best at,
Des. Can I call you Des? Write your story, or other people will write it for
you.”

Desmond
picked up the page, but not the pen. He said, “My son found a piece of paper
folded into an origami butterfly yesterday. It had a message on it in Japanese.
I don't know how to fold origami or write
kanji
…but I do know that all
of this Japanese culture must mean something to whoever killed Sandy and her
father. So I asked a Japanese man to translate it for me, and it said
fly
.
I think it's a warning, like the haiku I found typed into my laptop. I called
the police about that, but no one wanted to take me seriously. If you guys had
listened to me then, Phil might still be alive. You’re asking me for motive
because you've got nothing.”

“I
have nothing? I think I have a pretty simple explanation of events. You were
cracking under the pressure of being a single parent, cracking under the guilt
of killing your son’s mother. So you start projecting your violent urges
outward onto an imaginary character, a samurai. This is something you're well
practiced at—inventing imaginary warriors. You inhabit the role; wear a mask to
scare your kid…. You're trying to bring this character to life. But then, when
everybody sees right through it and starts to question your soundness of mind,
your fitness as a father, maybe even your innocence, you get angry. Phil
Parsons takes Lucas from you, and you snap. You kill again and decide to hide
the weapon in your wall. That's my Cliffs Notes version. You want to flesh it
out for me?”

“Where's
Chuck? Did the sheriff replace him with you when he saw my temple? Or are you
supposed to be the good cop, and they'll send him in to rough me up some more
if I don't say what you want to hear? Is he watching on the other side of the
glass?”

Desmond
looked at the mirror and waved. “Hi, Chuck,” he said, and frowned at the sight
of his swollen eyebrow where the flashlight had clipped him. He touched a
finger to it and winced. Turning back to Sanborn, he said, “There's more on my
torso. You understand that I will probably sue the holy hell out of this police
department when all of this is over. You guys fail to catch my wife's killer,
and when he starts coming for the rest of my family, you help abduct my son,
harass me, beat me.... Look, I just want to know that Lucas is safe, and that
the killer can't get at him. I don't care about anything else. Just promise me you
won't leave him unprotected just because you have me.”

“Lucas
is fine. He's safe.”

“Is
he in the building?”

“You
know I can't answer that.”

“I'd
feel a lot better if I knew he was in a police station. Do you really think
Karen can keep him safe? Do you have officers watching the house?”

“Let's
talk about you, Desmond, how you spent your morning.”

“I'll
talk about anything you want, but first you need to tell me where Lucas is.”

“It
doesn't work that way.”

“No?
You guys make deals all the time. I can shut up and wait for a lawyer who will
advise me to
keep
my mouth shut, or we can talk. But I need to know that
my son isn’t sitting in an unguarded house with just his grandmother. Do
you
have kids? Because this is on you. If you're wrong about me and anything should
happen to him….” Desmond could feel his voice breaking, could see the genuine
desperation he radiated having an effect on Sanborn. The inspector was getting
just a little bit confused. A seed of doubt had been planted.

“You
visited Harwood at Cedar Junction this morning. Made the appointment yesterday.
Why? What did you talk about?”

“Tell
me about Lucas, dammit! Does he know about Phil? For God’s sake, he lost his
mother and I don't know what he's been told about being taken from me…now his
grandfather is dead. Does he know?”

“He's
safe, okay? I promise. There are police around him.”

Desmond
stared into Sanborn’s pale blue eyes and for some inscrutable reason believed
him.

“Now,
why did you visit Harwood?”

“I
wanted to look him in the eye and ask him if he killed Sandy.”

Sanborn
tipped his hands to indicate he needed more than that.

“I
avoided the trial, it was too painful. But now the stakes are too high. Someone
is after us, maybe after the whole family. I had to see Harwood, see if he seemed
innocent.”

“They
found the weapon in his possession, Desmond. He confessed. The only thing
casting doubt on his guilt now is you hiding a sword in your wall right after
Phil Parsons was seen being cut down with one.”

“There
was a witness?”

Sanborn
shot a glance at the mirror. He had fucked up.

“Who
saw it? Wait, why didn't you put me in a lineup or something?” Desmond looked
at the mirror again. “Is the witness in there?”

Sanborn
twisted his wristwatch as if the band were too tight and said, “We may do just
that.”

“Did
this witness see the killer's face or was there a mask over it?” Desmond asked,
sitting up straight, his eyes boring into the detective’s.

Sanborn
hardened his face as he leaned forward in his chair. “This is an interrogation,
not a conversation. I'll humor you for the moment. Your gut reaction to Harwood
was what?”

“Not
guilty. Confused. But not a killer.”

“If
you think you can muddy the waters by visiting him, you're mistaken. If you
think that signing a log and having your ID checked by the infallible eyes of
the criminal justice system gives you an iron clad alibi, think again. We have
you checking out of Cedar Junction at eleven thirty. If you were speeding,
that's enough time to get back here and kill Parsons. You have an active
imagination, but you don't have an alibi. You don't have shit unless you can
give me someone who can attest to being with you at twelve twenty today.”

“I
was driving at twelve twenty. It's an hour and fifteen minutes from Walpole
doing seventy. I was barely home fifteen minutes when the cops kicked the door
in.”

“If
you didn't kill anyone with that sword, why did you hide it in the wall?”

“I
wanted to make sure that whoever is stalking my family couldn't get their hands
on it.”

“Seems
like a lot of trouble to take just to get rid of something. Why not sell it or
toss it in the river?”

“I
don't know, because I'm paranoid? You sell something on the web, there's a
record of it. Maybe the killer offers whoever I sell it to a crazy sum just to
get his hands on it.” Desmond laughed. “Maybe the killer buys it from me and I
don't know it's him. And you know we'd be having the very same conversation if
I tossed it into the river.”

“Why
would this stalker of yours be so interested in your sword?”

“He's
obsessed with samurai culture. He killed with it once before. I wanted to make
it impossible to find, and I knew the one place no one could spy on me while I
hid it was in my apartment.”

“But
you were also making sure that it was close at hand.”

“If
I ever found a hole in the wall, I’d know it had been taken.”

“But
you made sure it was in the same building as your son. Isn't that asking for
trouble?”

“Trouble
has been following us around. Confronting it seemed better.”

“Most
murder weapons get ditched in a place that can't be associated with the killer.
When you hide one in your home, that's because you're attached to it, can't let
it go. You keep it around for the memories?”

“Fuck
you, Sanborn. I think I'd rather talk to Chuck.” Desmond looked at the mirror.

“Why
did you kill Phil?”

“Check
the joint compound. It's been dry for twenty-four hours. I patched the hole in
the wall yesterday.”

“What
do you think this is, an episode of CSI? You think this is a big city with a
bunch of materials experts waiting around to look at crumbs from your wall
under a microscope?”

“Anyone
who’s ever patched a hole would know that I didn't do the job right before you
guys showed up. Even Fournier must know that.”

“You
know we do have DNA analysis, Des. The blade might
look
clean, but if
they find so much as one molecule of Phil Parsons on it, you're fucked.”

“Phil
gave me the goddamned thing in the first place.”

“They're
taking apart the handle and looking at places where the blood might have run
down inside the hardware. You should think hard about how well you cleaned it.”

“The
last time anyone handled that blade out of the sheath, it was you guys and your
geeks. They cleaned it up after Sandy's death, and they're not going to find
anything new but sheetrock dust.” As he said this, Desmond remembered the phone
call in the car at Cedar Junction, the FBI agent. In the whirlwind of his
arrest, he'd forgotten all about it. She’d wanted to know if he ever oiled the
blade. What was that about? Sanborn didn't even seem to know about the call. Was
it a coincidence that she'd contacted him on the same day? Was she even who she
said she was? He felt a creeping awareness that he was standing in a minefield.

The
fact of Phil’s death was sinking in now, too, and Desmond was surprised to find
that it hurt. Despite their differences, he had loved the guy in his own clumsy
way. Staring at the tabletop between his hands and watching the faux wood grain
blur and distort as water welled up in his eyes, he said, “How did Phil die,
exactly?” He could hear the thickness in his voice. “Was it the same as Sandy?”

Sanborn
sighed. “I'm going to give you a minute to collect your thoughts and reconsider
putting them on paper, Des.”

Sanborn
got up and left the room. When the door had swung shut and locked behind him, Desmond
took up the pen, wrote on the paper, then walked over to the mirror, and
slapped the paper flat against the glass: PROTECT LUCAS.

Chapter 15

Desmond felt
sand sloshing around in his sneakers as he crested the ridge of dunes. He was
climbing the thin path that wound up through the beach grass behind the
apartment, the beach where they had scattered Sandy’s ashes. He could smell the
ocean before it came into view, the crisp salt breeze pure and clean, untainted
by the dead fish smell that often accompanied low tide in the coastal marshes. He
heard the surf loud and close and, sure enough, when he came to the top of the
dunes, he could see the waves flooding toward him, foamy breakers churning and
roiling and reaching for the wire and picket barrier fence that jutted from the
dunes in a wavy line down the shore. He walked across the boundary of reed
fragments, hollow crab shells, and driftwood that marked the high tide line, his
sand-laden sneakers stepping over a salt-encrusted condom and a headless Barbie
doll wrapped in black strands of kelp.

The
wind was blowing hard, sweeping up grains of sand and stinging his hands with them.
The sky darkened as a wave of ravening black clouds swept inland, mimicking the
tide. The beach was empty except for a solitary dark figure wading into the
surf, clothed and oblivious to the waves soaking his black jeans at the knees
and splashing brine onto his indigo hoodie—no,
two
figures: walking
beside the man in the hoodie and holding his hand was a boy with brown hair and
a green shirt.
Lucas.

Desmond
ran to the waves, his sneakers plunging into the water, the cold ocean sluicing
through his jeans. But somehow, despite the height of the tide, the beach had
grown longer and no matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t reach them, couldn’t
get to the deeper water where the stranger was now up to his waist and Lucas
was bobbing on a swelling wave, beyond the breaker line. Desmond shouted with
all the force he could invoke, a long holler that mutated into a ragged scream
as if the grainy wind had shredded his voice in the air, perforated it with
mica shrapnel, “
LUCAAAAAS!”

The
boy, who must have heard his cry, didn’t turn to look, and Desmond felt a cold
certainty, a lung-crushing fear, that if the boy in the water did turn to look
at him, something would be wrong with his face, some mutilation, some deformity
that would mark him as irretrievable and yet undeniably Lucas. The man,
however, did turn to look at Desmond, and the face in the hood was a battle
mask, an arch-grimace of rage, a
kabuki
horror of alabaster-white,
ash-black, and blood-red lines.

Desmond
lunged forward into the crashing waves, dragging his hands through the
glistening water, dripping silver threads of it from his fingertips with each
lumbering stride and yet coming no closer to the pair. Gulls cried on the wind,
wheeling overhead, and diving from the bruised underbelly of the rippling black
storm front. He traced the arc of one as it plunged and skimmed the silver sea
and saw it come up with something white and angular in its beak.

The
surface of the water was scattered with origami birds—swans, cranes…ducks? They
bobbed and glowed in the diffuse light of a hidden sun, and Lucas bobbed among
them, his head dipping below the dark water.

Something
bumped Desmond’s hip, the flank of an animal; he felt submerged fur glide
across his skin.
Fenton?
He was almost sure it was his lost dog, his
dead dog, not swimming now as he had loved to do at this very beach, but
floating, drifting toward Lucas, toward the rip tide, trailing a cloud of blood
from his severed neck.

There
was a ringing sound now, like a metal clamp clanging against the mast of a
sailboat at anchor. It grew louder, and Desmond woke on the bunk in his cell,
the armpits of his t-shirt soaked with sweat. An officer was rapping his
wedding ring against the bars, and Desmond almost fell to the floor as he
scrambled to regain reality, composure, lucidity. How had he fallen asleep, and
so deep? Shame welled up with a flush of blood to his ears, and he remembered
just how little sleep he’d had over the past few days. His body had finally shut
down while there was nothing he could do.

“Your
lawyer,” the officer said. Desmond recognized him as one of the two who had
accompanied Fournier on the raid of his apartment.

Desmond’s
court-appointed lawyer was a short, stout man with salt-and-pepper hair and a
cheap suit that looked like it could use a trip to the dry cleaners. He introduced
himself as Stephen Janvrin as the cop locked the cell door behind him. Janvrin
sat down at the end of the wall-mounted bed with an ease and familiarity that
told Desmond he was used to meeting with clients in cells. Desmond rubbed the
heels of his hands across his eyes and wondered how many of those meetings had
led to verdicts of innocence.

Janvrin
placed his briefcase in his lap and drummed his fingers on the lid. “So,” he
began, “You're the only suspect for the murder of your father-in-law, and they
are awaiting some forensics results—”

“Stop
right there,” Desmond interrupted. “Do you know where my son is?”

“Son?”

“I
have a four-year-old son. His name is Lucas. I need you to find out where he is
and if he's being protected.”

“Okay,
but I don't know if they'll tell me. It's not the kind of thing that I need to
know to defend you.”

“
I
need to know it to defend
him
. Whoever killed Phil Parsons is coming
after our family. My son was in the care of Phil and Karen Parsons last night
after they took him from me and started a custody battle.”

“I'm
a criminal lawyer, Mr. Carmichael. I don't do custody battles.”

“I’m
innocent. If the police do their job with any competence, they’ll figure that
out and let me go. When that happens, I need to get my son back immediately. So
I need to know if they…if
Karen
has a leg to stand on with this
guardianship move. It was going before a judge tomorrow, but now that Phil is
dead and I'm in here, I don't know if I'm still supposed to appear in family
court on Monday morning. I need you to find out where Lucas is.”

“I
think you're putting the cart before the horse. Our first order of business is
to get you out of here. And that may be harder than you expect.”

“I
didn't kill Phil. They'll know that as soon as they check out the sword they
found at my apartment.”

“It's
not that simple. They have checked it out.”

“And?”

“Edged
weapons can't be identified with the same precision as firearms. When a bullet
exits the barrel of a gun, there are marks left on it that are unique to that
weapon. Swords and knives are a different story. Unless a little piece of the
blade chips off, a sword can't be identified with a particular wound. Not
unless the victim's blood is left on the weapon, like in your wife’s case. This
is good and bad for you.”

“Why?”

“Without
blood they can't prove that your sword made the cut, but
we
can’t prove
that it didn't. No traces of Mr. Parsons’ DNA have been found on the weapon as
of yet, but an expert can still testify that by its shape and size, your sword
could
very well be the murder weapon. And the fact that the same weapon was used to
kill your wife when it was in your possession will not help a jury to have
doubts. After all, most folks don't own a samurai sword, Mr. Carmichael.”

“What
about the wall, the spackle? It was dry because I hid the sword in the wall
yesterday.”

Janvrin
was shaking his head before Desmond could finish the sentence. “It won't be
admissible. No one preserved a sample, and now it's too late. It's your word
against that of the arresting officers.”

“But
Chuck Fournier's shoe would have wet spackle drying in the treads if I only
just finished the patch right before he kicked the wall in.”

“That
may be true, but I’m afraid it doesn’t help us. Evidence won’t save you. You
need an alibi, my friend. Do you have one?”

“Not
really.”

“You’re
in the CJ visitor log. What time did you leave and where did you go?”

 “I
left the prison at eleven thirty after about twenty minutes of talking to
Harwood. I drove right home and started packing some of Lucas's things to drop
off at Phil and Karen's house. That’s when the cops showed up.”

“Did
you talk to either of your in-laws on the phone about dropping by?”

“No.
I didn't want to take the chance that they might say no.”

“Did
you talk to
anyone
on the phone? Did you stop for gas or food? If you
were on the phone at twelve thirty, or filling your tank on some surveillance
camera, you couldn't also be killing a man at a golf course.”

“It
happened at a golf course?”

“Yes.
Phil was golfing with a judge friend, and he sliced it into the brush. He went
in to retrieve the ball and staggered back out with gashes in his chest and
abdomen.”

“That's
horrible.”

“The
judge didn't see the killer, just some black clothing.”

“Do
you know if he saw a mask? Like a samurai war mask?”

“I
don’t know.” Janvrin looked perplexed, but intrigued. Desmond thought maybe the
lawyer had assumed he was guilty and was beginning to reappraise that
suspicion.

“Wait,
I did get a call…I got a call on my cell phone from an FBI agent in California
while I was at the prison. I called her back from the car before I drove home.”

Janvrin
blinked. “Why didn't you mention that before?”

“I
figured everybody knew by now. Haven't the police been through my phone records
yet?”

“They're
working on it. What did this agent want with you? Did you get her name?”

“She
said she was working on a case with similarities to Sandy's. I forget her name.
She wanted to know if I’d ever put oil on the sword because a particular kind
of oil was found on it, and she found the same kind of oil in
her
sword
murder case. I told her no, I never did.”

“Hmmph.
So she's thinking…what?”

“I
don't know, ask her. She said I wasn’t a suspect in her case, but I’m guessing
that may have changed by now.”

“Okay,
I need to talk to this FBI agent. I’ll see if I can get access to your cell
phone.”

“Don’t
entangle me any further, Mr. Janvrin. It’s going to be much harder for me to
protect my son if I have the feds looking at me as a bicoastal serial killer.”

“If
you're innocent, it might be better for you to have
them
on it than a
pack of townies with an axe to grind.”

“
If?
”

Janvrin
shrugged. He took a Blackberry from his jacket pocket and said, “You don't
remember the agent's name? Try for me. First name, initials, something to go
on.”

Desmond
tried to put himself back in the car. Rain on the windows. The female voice in
his message box reminding him at first of Sandy's voice as if, impossibly, she
had called him from the great beyond while he was visiting the man convicted of
killing her. “Relic?” It sounded something like that. “I don't know…. She told
me the name of the victim in her case.
That
I do remember because I was
going to look into it: Lamprey.”

“That
does sound familiar. Probably getting more coverage in California. I'll look
into it.” Janvrin typed the name into his phone. He got up off of the bunk and
straightened his suit. “Do you have anyone who would post bail for you? It’s unlikely
that they’ll set one, and if they do, it could be quite high.”

Desmond
shook his head.

“I'll
see you again tonight if it turns out they don't have enough to hold you.”

“What
if they do? I'm just stuck in here?”

“If
you're the prime suspect and the evidence precludes bail, they’ll transfer you
to a more secure facility.”

The
notion was jarring; Desmond felt the ground shifting under his feet. Then he remembered
the only thing that really mattered before his one link to the outside world
walked out. “Please find out where Lucas is. If you do nothing else for me,
make sure that he and Karen are being protected.”

Janvrin
looked like he wanted to say something, maybe wanted to protest. But he must
have read the intensity in Desmond’s eyes because he only nodded, then called
for the guard to let him out.