Pariah

by Thomas Zigal

  “Let me say something about that,” Smerlas interrupted. “I think what Kurt Muller did last March showed incredible cowardice!”

  “Let’s give the sheriff a chance to answer first,” Heron insisted. “Then you can make your point, Commissioner.”

  All eyes shifted to Kurt. A moment passed, an eternity in radio time, and he could see the sound engineer remove his headset and peer up from the orchestra pit, impatient with the lull. Kurt glanced into the wings, where Corky Marcus had suddenly materialized like the ghost of Hamlet’s father. The attorney was spinning his hands in a frantic circle, imploring Kurt to say something. Anything.

  “Sheriff Muller?” Heron prodded.

  Kurt consulted the doodles on his pad. He had unconsciously sketched several I Ching trigrams like the ones on Rocky’s ring. “Hind-sight is always twenty-twenty, Mr. Smerlas,” he said finally. “In this job you can second-guess yourself forever. You’d do a lot of things differently if you had another chance.”

  He looked again at the trigrams, then toward the dark balcony. He imagined it was Nicole sitting up there, smoking defiantly, a faux fur draped around her tanned shoulders. He imagined her drinking champagne from a fluted glass and smiling down on his misery. She believed in absolution and second chances. She had known what it was like to seek forgiveness for a mistake.

  “You let the woman die! ” Smerlas said, his words so emphatic they reverberated down Kurt’s spine. Angry and stunned, he turned quickly to face the commissioner, and Heron raised his arms as if he expected a flurry of blows.

  “I wasn’t willing to risk other lives in that storm,” Kurt said, his voice rising. “The men and women who were out there with me poling through the ice had loved ones waiting for them to come home.”

  Smerlas was livid now, his face flushed and indignant. “Imagine the poor woman lying there helpless for all those hours, thinking you would come to her rescue,” he said, leaning forward to glare at Kurt.

  Kurt looked away at the balcony again, where the small orange tip of a cigarette burned in a single point of light. You’re the only one who can help me, Kurt, she had said. He could still feel the terror in her eyes.

  “You pulled out too quickly, Sheriff Muller. That’s my assessment, and that’s the way a lot of voters around here feel about it,” Smerlas barked. “You don’t seem to have the intestinal fortitude it takes to make responsible decisions. I have serious doubts about your judgment. And that’s why I’m urging the good people of this county to recall you as sheriff.”

  Kurt had gone inside himself to wallow in his own guilt and was only vaguely aware, at first, that someone was applauding from the dark balcony. A measured, echoing clap, muffled and menacing, filled with a palpable contempt. There was a man standing in the shadows near the gilded railing, the cigarette glowing from his lips. Heron stopped midsentence and squinted upward through his rimless glasses, distracted by the haunting clap. The audience was stirring now, shifting about in their seats, searching for the source of the interruption. From the overhead darkness a sudden burst of laughter spread like a black net over the entire theater, a sound so vile it chilled every listener into silence. Kurt stood up abruptly, knocking over his chair. He had heard that laugh before.

  “You! ” he shouted, ripping off the clip mike and pointing his finger toward the balcony. The cigarette burned in the dark like a tiny ember spit from a hearth log. “Stay where you are! You’re under arrest! ”

  When Kurt reached the wings of the stage, Corky grabbed at his jacket sleeve. “Kurt! What the hell—?” he said, trying to detain him. “Have you lost your freaking mind? You’re live on the radio!”

  He shoved Corky aside and thundered up the aisle toward the lobby, scanning the unlit balcony as he ran. He saw a shadow moving swiftly across the upper rows, then a slice of light, the rear door opening. “Muffin!” he yelled, searching the audience for his deputy. “Backup! Bring Gill!”

  Like everyone else, she was standing at her seat, gaping at him as if he were the village idiot on the loose.

  “Draw your weapon!” he commanded the stunned young woman. “It’s him!”

  He banged through the theater doors and raced across the lobby in full stride, pounding up the stairwell to the balcony section, his lungs fighting the sudden exertion, his mouth as dry as powder. He was unarmed but too angry to feel fear. It was the joker who had harassed Nicole and broken into his house, and when he caught him he was going to tear him apart with his bare hands.

  At the top of the stairs Kurt caught a glimpse of the man retreating through a doorway at the end of the third-floor corridor. He was tall and slightly stooped, with long greasy strands of silver hair falling to the shoulders of his faded black duster. Kurt didn’t get a look at his face.

  “Stop!” he shouted, running down the corridor toward the closed door. “Pitkin County Sheriff’s Department! Come out where I can see you!”

  He stood aside the door, bracing his back against the florid wallpaper, listening for movement inside. Where was Muffin with her Glock 9? Where was Gill? There was no sign that they had followed him.

  Unwilling to lose more time, he reached over and gripped the doorknob and flung open the groaning door. A musty draft whiffled out from the dark enclosure, a sealed-off smell of yellowing paper and layered dust and, if he was not mistaken, a trace of charred wood. He took a deep breath, cocked a hard fist, and poked his head around the polished mahogany molding. The darkness was spoiled by a high transom window, the gray light revealing bare wooden stairs leading steeply upward to what must have been the Wheeler’s storage attic.

  Kurt looked back across the quiet corridor and realized that his deputies had taken a wrong turn somewhere. He knew he should wait for them to catch up, but every wasted second gave that creep the advantage, and there was no more time to lose. He pulled the tube of pepper spray from his pocket and stepped inside the closet-like space.

  “Hey, you up there! Come down with your hands on your head!” Kurt yelled into the darkness above, a black rectangle that may have been a door at the top of the stairs. He was standing on the first step now, adjusting his eyes to the dim lighting, searching the room for something to wield as a weapon. Noticing a stack of ancient window drapes rolled up and stashed against the wall, he stooped down and examined the spearlike head of a long wooden rod protruding from one of the moth-eaten bundles.

  “Hey, pal, this is an official police order! Come back down here immediately!” he said, whipping the rod through the dusty air, testing the wood’s durability. What else did he have? He didn’t want to get close enough to use the spray.

  Kurt issued another loud command and listened to the silence. Gripping the rod like a baseball bat, he climbed the creaking stairs until he reached the black hole that was no door but an open portal into a vast storage attic filled with shadow-looming silhouettes, tall crates and costumed mannequins and the disassembled parts of background scenery from long-forgotten theater productions. The air vents leaked enough daylight to provide an eerie, chimerical definition to the shapes scattered about the dark space. Kurt ventured forth, following a walkway that ran alongside the attic’s support beams, his boots rattling loose boards underfoot. He was torn between calling out another official order and inching along in this breathless silence, hoping to surprise the man before the man surprised him. His anger had given way to a sudden fear and uncertainty, the creepiness of this place so visceral it made the hairs stand on his arms. A small tension knot was pressing the nape of his neck. He could smell the man’s body odor, a funky tinge of sweat and piss in the mausoleum air, and he wanted to confront the bastard face-to-face.

  When he reached the end of the walkway he paused to get his bearing. Stacked wooden crates formed high walls enclosing him on three sides, but he could make out a small opening in one corner, a slender breach wide enough for a body to slip through. He thought he heard something just beyond this row, a low croaking sound, solid weight on a sagging board. He waited, list
ening intently, the rod seized with both hands. The scant attic light had dimmed into deeper shade, a passing cloud blocking the gray sunlight filtering through the vents. It was so dark now he couldn’t decipher the words stenciled on the crates. There was another noise, a soft sound like a hand brushing grit from a wood surface. Brandishing the old drape rod in front of him like a spear, he tucked in his shoulders and squeezed between the crates, slowly tunneling through the dusky passage for twenty feet or more, a cold, foul-smelling draft blowing in his face, the unmistakable odor of human waste. Within moments he’d reached a small clearing where a shaft of meager light shone down on a man standing perfectly still next to a full-length dressing mirror with a long jagged crack. He was tall and gaunt, with a scraggly silver beard and wild-burning eyes. In the pale light he looked like the gnarled husk of what had once been Rocky Rhodes. The man slowly reached into his black duster and pulled a long dull hunting knife from a leather sheath hanging at his side.

  Kurt recoiled a step, jabbing the air with the rod. “Drop the knife!” he shouted.

  As he retreated another step, his back foot splintered a rotten plank behind him. His ankle twisted, his knee buckled, and he felt himself going down. Losing the rod, he tried to catch his balance against a crate and realized too late he was pulling over the entire precarious wall of boxes. The first one landed across his shoulder blades and knocked him to his knees, and then the avalanche began, a cavernous roar all around him, box upon box, flattening him facedown on the boardwalk.

  He didn’t know how long he was out. A few seconds, a full minute. When he came to, he realized he was buried beneath the crates and couldn’t move. He heard the slow drag of shoe soles, and then a raspy whisper from somewhere above him: “Now you know how it feels six feet under.” The vocal cords sounded damaged, ruined. “Dark and cold. All alone. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,” the man sang in a husky growl, laughing to himself.

  His footsteps were shuffling along the perimeter of the fallen crates, moving closer. Kurt struggled hard to free himself and managed to shift a crate off one arm. His belly and legs were pinned and he couldn’t reach the pepper spray in his pocket.

  “Ain’t no use fightin’ it, brother,” the voice said with that low scratchy laugh. “Sooner or later we all end up thisaway.”

  A ragged sleeve descended out of the darkness and the knife blade plunged into a crate two feet from Kurt’s head. With his one free hand he grabbed the bony wrist, but the man was strong and gristled and jerked the knife away. Kurt braced for another attempt and heard the second slash coming, the long wide blade whiffing near his ear. A snatch of loose sleeve was all he could see of his attacker. He was taking his time, crawling slowly over the crates now, shifting them out of his way, looking for an opening and flesh to cut.

  “What did you expect would happen to you, brother,” the voice said, strained and winded, “when you fucked my old lady?”

  The next slash tore through the thick shoulder pad of Kurt’s suede jacket.

  “Hey, Kurt, are you up here?” Somewhere in the distance a woman was calling his name. “Deputy Muffin Brown, Pitkin County! Is anybody up here?”

  “Over here!” Kurt shouted with all his might, but his voice sounded muffled underneath the heap of boxes. “Use your Glock! He’s got a knife!”

  Above him the movement stopped. In the silence Kurt could hear only the pounding of his own heart. Where was the attacker?

  Suddenly the crates began to collapse all around him. A box edge caught the side of his head. In that final moment before losing consciousness he heard the man’s hoarse laughter trailing off into darkness.

  Chapter sixteen

  Kurt, wake up. Are you all right?”

  He nestled against Nicole’s gentle bosom. She was patting his cheek to rouse him. Running through the snow on her deck, he must have slipped and hit his head.

  “Hey, boss, come out of it. Wake up.”

  Something familiar about the smell of her body soap, a nut-brown fragrance, polished saddles and baked bread. He had once shared that soap, round and smooth, hanging from a coarse string in her shower stall.

  “Don’t move him. Something might be broken.” A male voice floating in the haze. “EMS is on the way.”

  Kurt opened his eyes and winced from the harsh light.

  “Keep the flashlight out of his eyes, dummy,” Muffin said.

  “Hey, Kurt old buddy, you’re gonna make it,” the man giggled. Kurt recognized the high nasal voice of Joey Florio. “Nobody’s ever been snuffed by twenty boxes of sequined costumes.”

  Kurt watched him reach down into a pile of clothing and find a ruffled black teddy, sizing it against his chest.

  “Not your color, Florio,” said Gill Dotson, who was roaming around nearby with another flashlight. “You look prettier in pink.”

  “Fuck you, Dotson,” Joey said, tossing the teddy at him. “Here, your old lady left this in my car.”

  “Knock it off, you two,” Muffin said sternly. “Give me a hand. He may have a concussion.”

  With considerable effort, Kurt lifted his head from Muffin’s lap and sat up. They had cleared away the boxes, but gaudy costumes were strewn all around them like debris from a wrecked gypsy wagon.

  “Did you collar him?” Kurt managed to say, the words echoing distantly through his head.

  “Collar who, Kurt?” Muffin asked. “I didn’t see anyone.”

  There was a loud ringing in his ears and he couldn’t focus on anything solid. He felt Muffin’s muscular arm around his shoulder but her face was a blur. Flashlight beams fluttered in the murk like luminous cave moths.

  “Rocky,” he said in a weak voice. “It’s gotta be Rocky Rhodes.”

  The flashlights ceased their motion. In the long ensuing silence he heard the men whispering.

  “He had a hunting knife,” Kurt said. There was a bloody scrape on the back of his head from one of the crates. The feeling was slowly returning to his legs. “He tried to kill me.”

  “Take it easy,” Muffin said, holding him. “Try not to move. EMS will be here soon.”

  “Where were you, Muffin? I needed your backup.”

  “Hang on now. Why don’t you lie back down?”

  “Hey, Kurt, here’s your Rocky Rhodes,” said Joey Florio, shining his flashlight on a tall figure standing next to the long cracked mirror. It was a mannequin.

  “These things are all over the place,” Joey said. “Somebody had some fun with this one. Looks like Sonny Bono on black acid.”

  The mannequin was outfitted in ’60s attire. Long-haired wig and false sideburns, prism sunglasses, strings of cheap beads and a medallion around its neck, ragged Turkish sheepskin jacket, bell-bottoms, marijuana-leaf belt buckle.

  “Joey, go check on the EMS unit,” Muffin said. “They should be downstairs by now.”

  She had served as acting sheriff for a year when Kurt was on R and R and was used to giving orders.

  “Aye aye, sir,” Joey grumbled, shuffling off into the darkness with the flashlight beam dancing at his feet. “If I run into Rocky on the way out, I’ll ask him to hit a few power chords for you, Kurt.”

  Kurt stared at the mannequin in the gray attic twilight. “Get a team up here to search the place,” he said, gazing around at the cobwebbed rafters. “He may be hiding somewhere in this mess.”

  He pulled himself out of Muffin’s grip and rolled onto his knees, closing his eyes to slow the dizziness.

  “You’ve had a blow to the head, Kurt,” she said. “Why don’t we sort this out after you’ve had some rest?”

  She laid a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged her away and tried to stand. “It was him, goddammit!” he said, a faint echo surrounding each word like a man speaking in a long narrow tunnel. “Didn’t you hear him up in the balcony? The laugh gave him away.”

  Muffin rose to her feet with him, steadying his shoulders. “Everybody thought you’d lost it,” she said. “Running offstage like a bat out of hell.�
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  He took hold of her wrist and pulled her so close he could smell that nut-brown soap she always used. Even in the weak light he saw the surprise on her face. “He tried to stab me with an eight-inch hunting knife,” he said, showing her the gash in his jacket. “It was the guy who wrote the letters to Nicole. The same guy who broke into my house.”

  Her warm breath feathered his neck. “Whoever it is, Kurt, it can’t be Rocky Rhodes. Don’t you hear how crazy that sounds?”

  Heavy footsteps scuffed out of the darkness and Muffin reacted quickly, drawing her holstered sidearm.

  “Hey, you two lovebirds,” Gill said, his flashlight blazing into their faces. “I found something back here. Can you walk, boss?”

  Kurt felt strong enough to move his feet and limped along with Muffin’s support as Gill led them down a sagging boardwalk between mounds of junk. In another small clearing near the rear wall of the attic, Kurt caught a whiff of what he’d smelled earlier, just before his encounter with the knifer.

  “God, that’s not rat shit,” Muffin complained, disgusted by the odor. “More like the human variety.”

  Dotson’s flashlight illuminated an old olive-drab sleeping bag spread out in a hiding place behind several crates. The enclosure was littered with fast-food wrappers and tattered magazines. The stench was overwhelming.

  “Looks like some homeless person’s been holing up in here,” Gill said. “Good chance he’s your heckler, Kurt.”

  Muffin pulled winter gloves from the pocket of her parka and slipped them on, then stooped down to leaf through one of the splayed magazines. “Hmm,” she said, directing her light on a page of pornographic photos. “It’s so hard to find a devoted harem nowadays.”

  The photographs were laughably dated, a gaggle of naked hippie girls lying about in various poses, wearing long straight hair and flower-power body paints. A young man as hairy as a simian appeared in each frame with a stiff erection, the focus of their sexual attention. The magazine must have been at least twenty-five years old.