by Julie Bozza
Albert turned back to the cutting board, swept the diced pepper into the pot simmering away on the back burner. Fletcher liked spicy food so Albert was making him a Mexican dish based on beans and rice, with an avocado and lettuce salad. An unwelcome surprise, that all this trivial domesticity should have become satisfying in its own right. Had he really overlooked the entire point during all these years of dismissing such ordinary comforts? Could he possibly have forgotten that his own parents’ quietly joyous contentment had been drawn partly from such moments?
But he was in no way entitled to compare his problematical friendship with Ash to the marriage of Rebecca and Miles.
The phone call was brief, and Albert learned little from Fletcher’s few words. Once he’d hung up, Fletcher sat in silence for a moment. Then he said, “The victim was young, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Looks like a Latino background, but they haven’t identified him yet. Been dead for months.” Ash smiled unhappily. “Alanna is closer to believing me, but she’s not all the way there yet.”
“Same MO as the two other boys in Georgia?”
“Exactly the same, which has to tell us something. Does he go through phases? For a while he likes it in a particular way, but then he gets tired or bored with it. Or he’s experimenting with different methods, maybe, finding the best or most effective for him. Or he’s acting out a whole range of fantasies, one by one. Whatever it is, he’s very neat and tidy about it.”
The man fell silent, and remained subdued over dinner, not paying much attention to the food. Albert studied him, realizing that Fletcher was disturbed at some deep level. Impatient with the tantrums that had greeted the first news from Georgia, Albert had made the mistake of assuming Fletcher’s reactions to this were shallow, easily expended and forgotten. But it seemed all that extravagance had obscured this more weighty concern.
“You’re doing everything you can with what you’ve got, to paraphrase Thornton,” Albert offered. “That’s all you can ask of yourself.”
“It’s not enough.”
Albert said as patiently as he could, “Then nothing will ever be enough.”
“No, nothing ever will.”
If this had been moroseness, Albert could have dismissed it but instead it was a simple, profound sadness of which Albert was almost envious. The purity of it would fade, tainted by self-pity, and Ash would regain his determination. For now, Albert simply watched the man. Was it possible to love Fletcher more, all of a sudden, and only because of witnessing this emotion?
Albert had wondered at himself, in Colorado, doubting the suitability of this man he had chosen to love. Of course, there was all the glory and inconvenience of the physical reaction, which was perhaps inevitable - Albert defied anyone not to find Fletcher Ash attractive. But beyond that, what sense did it make for Albert to love a man who seemed to lack qualities, such as self-control, that Albert particularly valued? Looking back on it, though, Albert could understand Ash’s frustration and guilt, the horror of not stopping this murderer. Fletcher had willingly taken on the responsibility of solving this case when no one else would, which was commendable. Perhaps his manner of expressing his frustration at the lack of results left a lot to be desired, but Ash felt things deeply, and that again was not a bad trait even if he took it too far - he was no doubt ready to have himself arrested for aiding and abetting the man they were after. Albert had to conclude that, despite all these justifications he had to make to himself, Fletcher Ash was worth loving.
As predicted, Fletcher’s fine sadness seemed at last to dwindle into depression. After a while Albert advised, “Snap out of it, Ash.”
Rising from his thoughts, Fletcher was slow to respond. “Let me grieve.”
“What use is grieving? This hopelessness won’t get you anywhere.”
“There’s nothing to be done this evening. And I can’t be working twenty-four hours a day.”
“Instead of wallowing, you could keep a clear mind, and be in a position to let yourself work this through.”
“I would love to work it through, but I can’t right now.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“To be brutally honest, I’m grieving for Philip and Stacey and Mitch and this other young man - and also for me. I’m not who I thought I was, who I wanted to be, if I can let this happen.” Fletcher looked up, smiled humorlessly. “See, I’m so selfish that I mourn my self-image at a time like this.”
Albert was careful not to react. Fletcher had called himself selfish only that afternoon, presumably in an attempt to warn Albert off providing a friend with the most basic hospitality. But Albert could both admire Ash’s scruples, and dismiss them as unnecessary. He said, “Selfishness is the last attribute I would accuse you of, Ash.”
The man seemed genuinely surprised, and protested, “I’m the most selfish person I know.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Yet another matter Fletcher would not see reason on.
“You won’t allow me my guilt, either, will you? But I hate feeling that there’s nothing I can do, that I’m a step - no, I’m twenty steps behind this man and he’s on a roll. Everything’s proceeding so perfectly for him, life couldn’t be better, and I’m stumbling along and running into walls and I can’t even keep up.”
“You’re taking this out of proportion.”
“How can I possibly take any murder out of proportion, let alone a string of them? It’s horrific, no matter how you look at it.”
“Don’t pretend to misunderstand me. You need a cool head to be of any use, rather than overreacting like this.” Albert added, “Tell me rationally, what’s so important about this case in particular?”
Fletcher took a long breath, but the answer came easily enough. “He’s why I joined the FBI. People like him.”
“Yes?”
“To stop them, of course.” Ash shrugged. “It’s as simple as that.”
Albert frowned at him. “There’s more to it, you’ve said so yourself.”
“Okay. I also joined up in order to use this imagination of mine, this intuition you don’t believe in.”
“I believe you have intuition, that you reconstruct crimes through your imagination,” Albert said. “But I don’t believe the conclusions you reach can always be true.”
Fletcher insisted, “I can imagine what happened between this man and Mitch, I can feel how it would be to murder the boy.”
“But the flaw in your argument is that you couldn’t actually do it.”
“You think not?” Fletcher bit out.
This still made no sense to Albert. “Of course you couldn’t, you would never seek that situation or go through with it if you did have the opportunity. You don’t have the personality or the background.”
“Is that so?”
“No need to sound so affronted, Ash,” Albert said dryly, “when someone accuses you of being incapable of murder.”
“I’m only affronted that you don’t take me seriously. You should have met my grandfather, the one I look like - he was capable of murder. He could be the most cold-blooded, vindictive man. When I was just a kid, he said to me that if a man is cuckolded, it’s all right for him to kill his wife or her lover or both. He honestly thought the law should allow that: ‘A man can’t be expected to let that sort of thing be.’ And I inherited other things from him, apart from my looks. He’d understand my determination to do my job well and bring this killer to justice. And he was supposed to have the second sight, I don’t know if that has anything to do with my intuition. Frankly, I don’t really know what the second sight is meant to be.”
“Perhaps you have inherited some of his traits. Your grandfather gave you more than his genes, however; he was someone you learned from, even as an example of what you didn’t want to become.”
Fletcher shrugged.
Growing impatient, Albert asked, “What exactly would you do with him if you took Mitchell Brown home? Or Stacey Dixon, if she’s more to your taste,” he quickly added, not wanting an answer to the fi
rst. “You wouldn’t cuff her and shoot her as this man did. You wouldn’t torture, rape or murder anyone. It’s ridiculous to dwell on such an idea.”
“It’s not ridiculous when understanding the power of it, the rush and surge of it, gives me a feel for what this person is.”
“As long as you don’t treat that - what is it? Instinct or fantasy? As long as you don’t treat it as knowledge.”
“It’s hardly fantasy,” Fletcher said, weary now. One hand cut short an exasperated gesture. “We always run around the same circles when we have this conversation.”
Albert considered this whole thing such a waste of Fletcher’s energy. They were both quiet for a while. Fletcher seemed safely deflated.
But then he asked, “Why did you join the Bureau, Albert? And why forensics?”
“To find the person or persons unknown who killed my parents.” No trespassing.
It stopped Ash for a moment. And then, the gears in his mind visibly beginning to turn again, Fletcher protested, “No. It’s not that simple for you, either. You can’t - you definitely do not mean that literally. It was all too long ago. And figuratively, it’s not enough. You’re not seeking revenge, it’s nothing obvious like that.”
Silence. Albert loathed feeling foolish. It hadn’t been such a smart thing to blurt out after all.
Fletcher was continuing, “The forensics, it’s something you’re incredibly good at. People would call you a genius if they liked you better. I have no idea what makes one person a genius at something like that. I mean, why forensics and not … astrophysics, or music? You specialize in everything, anything to do with people inflicting violence on each other: pathology, biochemistry, toxicology, dentistry -”
“Odontology,” Albert corrected.
“Psychology,” Ash said, “ballistics, hairs and fibers, fingerprints, weapons and poisons, crime scenes; more things than I can even think of right now. Most people specialize in only one or two of those fields. You’re unique, Albert. So why the FBI?”
“You think you have the answer,” Albert said, frowning at this impertinence.
“I suppose an organization with national jurisdiction gives you the chance to use the best facilities, work on the most important cases, do the most good. But you must hate the bureaucracy of it, the politics.”
“Must I.”
“Worse than I do. Though I suppose none of that weighs very heavily against the chance to bring murderers and rapists to justice.”
“To what passes for justice in this society.”
Fletcher stared at him, startled at the sourness.
Albert shrugged. “Forensics is a worthier endeavor than tapping Noam Chomsky’s phone.”
Choking back a laugh, Ash said, “You’re right.”
“Don’t you do sordid, trivial little things like that, Special Agent? All in the name of lies, corruption, and the American way.”
Apparently Fletcher had a hundred replies to that, and none. He kept opening his mouth to say something, then changing his mind.
“You’re comfortable with all the duties the Bureau has required you to perform?”
“Albert -”
“What?”
“Sometimes you are the most difficult person to talk with.” The younger man gestured helplessly. “So many things I can’t say to you.”
“We were only talking about work.”
“No, we’re talking about our personal reasons for what we do, our reactions, our compromises. And it isn’t just work for either of us.” Ash looked around the dining room, apparently searching for a change of topic. “This is a wonderful meal. I appreciate that you go to the trouble of indulging my tastes.”
“That’s the best you can manage?”
“All right,” he said impatiently. A moment of thought, then a very direct stare. “For friends, we sure bicker a lot.”
Albert looked down at his plate as he neatly gathered together a last mouthful of food. “It would be ludicrous to expect our opinions to always coincide.”
“Well, I certainly agree to disagree with you on some things.”
“Such as?”
“You’ve spent half the evening telling me what I am - or what I’m not, to be more exact. And, yes, you’re often right about people, even if you always underestimate them. But it would be nice if you’d respect my judgment.”
“I don’t see why. You’re hardly in the best position to make judgments about yourself. And I’m not going to lie to you if I think you’re wrong.”
“There’s a line beyond which honesty becomes sheer nastiness, and tact or understanding are called for.” Ash grimaced and added, “Besides which, you seem to think no one’s in a better position than you to judge Albert Sterne. Why can’t that principle apply to us lesser mortals?”
“Is that an example of nastiness?” Albert asked scathingly. “Thank you for the demonstration.”
A turbulent silence.
Albert stood, reached for Fletcher’s plate that had, at last, been emptied, and carried it through to the kitchen. The last few days had been horribly tiring - Albert was used to long hours, tragic cases, little sleep - but he wasn’t used to dealing with a friend as well, not someone who meant so much, invading his home so there was no retreat.
“Never mind, Albert,” said Fletcher Ash, in the quiet, reassuring voice he used with frightened children. He was leaning in the doorway, at ease.
Does this mean so little to you? Albert flared at him.
“I’ll be heading back to Colorado soon. Or Georgia, if Caroline will let me. Out of your way, in any case, let you have some peace and quiet.”
A strange sensation, akin to the shock of Ash striking out at him two mornings ago. Which was worse: Ash threatening to leave, or the thought of this domestic chaos continuing? Albert felt at a loss for a moment, his anger dying, and not even this unfamiliar disorientation rekindling it. He plugged in the coffee-maker, filled the jug with filtered water, measured out the required amount of ground beans, added an extra spoonful because Ash preferred his coffee strong.
The man was just standing there, watching him. Albert didn’t like it, but he had nothing to push Fletcher away with right now. If Ash started again with those declarations - the ones impossible to interpret because they left so much unsaid, the half-explanations that assumed there was some kind of understanding between them - if Ash started with those, in that pitying tone of voice, Albert had no idea what he’d say. The tension of all the unshouted words churned in his gut.
But when Ash moved at last, he simply walked over to the sink and ran a tubful of water to wash up in - water as hot as Albert insisted on for proper sterilization, so he couldn’t even take the man to task for that. Silence, as Fletcher washed, and Albert dried, and the coffee brewed.
A silence that slowly became companionable. Albert knew that now he had truly let the man into his home, a large part of him didn’t want Fletcher to leave; and yet the rest of him couldn’t bear anymore of this. And Ash knew that, too, of course. One of the things Albert loved him for was his instinct for how people were feeling and what they were thinking, even though that was so dangerous right now, with Albert’s unwanted yearnings and confusions all too evident.
But there was always the good and the bad when it came to Fletcher. For instance, the man was still optimistic enough to see the best in people, to expect and therefore to find quality, despite all the years of what Albert considered must be disappointments. But when that ability extended to seeing something worthy in mediocrities like McIntyre, Albert had a difficult time remembering that it was a desirable attribute.
And then there was this strange idea of Fletcher’s, that he had the potential for evil. The man was not a killer, he did not fit any of the profiles. Rather the opposite. He no doubt had problems with carrying a gun, and being expected to use it within certain situations, even though that was a requirement of being a special agent in the field. And yet Ash insisted there were impulses within him that had to be fought
and contained. Albert couldn’t accept that as possible - but even this mistaken and melodramatic notion of his was reason to love Ash. Humanity was capable of so much evil and Ash was all the more valuable for choosing to make a career of fighting it, and for wrestling the bad within himself as well.
Contradictions, paradoxes. Could that be love? Surely it had been simpler for his parents. Miles and Rebecca were different sorts of people from Albert, and they had each found someone who embodied all of the best qualities. Yet wasn’t that exactly what Albert had found in Fletcher? Humanity’s drive and complexity and passion and idealism, all in a package that, to add insult to injury, was so obviously attractive.
Fletcher seemed to realize that Albert should be left alone, and once the kitchen was set to rights again said a quiet, “Goodnight,” then retreated to the guest room with a mug of coffee.