The Pain Scale

by Tyler Dilts

  “How’s the trial going?” I asked Jen.

  “It’s not. Not yet, anyway,” she said. “They didn’t even get to me. Sat around all morning. Waiting.”

  I didn’t know much about the case. Only that it was another Asian Boyz gang murder. It occurred to me that it was sad that I felt like I didn’t need to know any more about it.

  Late that afternoon, I had an appointment with my physical therapist. Her name is Brookes Little, which I always find amusing because she stands an even six feet tall. I’ve never mentioned it, though, because I’m afraid she would hurt me.

  “How are you, Danny?”

  I like answering that question for her because she is one of the very few people who seems like she is hoping for an honest answer when she asks it.

  “Better, a bit.” I wasn’t sure how much to share with her. “I think going back to work is going to be good for the pain.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear it.”

  I spent forty-five minutes on her table, and she stretched and contorted my arms, shoulders, and neck in ways that still surprised me, even after nine months. Then she had me demonstrate several of the daily exercises she’d prescribed for me to check my form.

  “Have you thought any more about getting a guitar?”

  “I suppose I could get one.”

  She’d first made the suggestion several weeks earlier, and it was becoming clear that she wouldn’t be letting up. I knew her husband was a musician of some kind. Maybe that had something to do with her enthusiasm. “I just can’t imagine myself playing. I’m not very musical.”

  “You’ll play it.”

  “What makes you so confident?”

  “Because you always do what I tell you to. You’re good that way. Get the guitar. It’ll improve your hand strength and dexterity.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t just say okay and then not do it again.”

  “Okay.”

  After my appointment, I took a drive to the congressman’s neighborhood. Was Bradley really as homebound as Campos kept telling us he was? I didn’t have any illusions about how much I might be able to see. But I thought I might be able to get a glimpse of Bradley’s car. Even that wouldn’t be definitive, but I wanted to see it parked there with my own eyes. That wasn’t exactly true. I wanted to see it not parked there. I wanted to confirm my suspicions that Bradley was in much better shape than we’d been led to believe. I wanted to be able to call Campos a liar to his face.

  I drove up and down the street twice. The gate and the wall obstructed the view from the street completely. There was a chance that if I got out and walked up to the gate I’d be able to get a look inside, but I knew there was a camera on the gate; I’d have no chance at seeing what I wanted to see without someone inside having a chance to see me.

  The alley was my best chance. I circled around the block in my Camry and drove up the small lane behind the estate. There was no mistaking the rear of the congressman’s property. The wall matched that in the front, down to the swirl pattern in the stucco. The garage actually had its main entrance off the front drive, but its back wall stood only a few yards away from the rear wall of the property. As I had hoped, just past the garage was a service gate. Of course. It just would not do to have caterers and plumbers and other riffraff coming in up the main drive. At the edge of the gate, facing back the way I had come, was a single hooded video camera. It looked quite a bit older and less secretive than that in front. They’d want anyone approaching the back gate to know they were being watched.

  I turned left out of the alley and parked on the street two long blocks away from the house. On foot, I went back up the alley. If the camera I had seen really was the only one back there, I would be able to approach the back gate and get a look over the fence without entering its field of view.

  The wall was eight feet high, and even though it had been a long time since I’d scaled one like it, it was still relatively easy to take hold of its top edge and pull myself up to get a look. Which I did three times as I got closer to the gate. There was a fairly large concrete area off to the side and out of view of the house, about the size of two or three average suburban driveways. There was nothing in the space at the moment, and the moonlight lit it up in bright contrast to the sliver of yard I was able to see at its far edge.

  There was just enough light to make out the passenger side of a Porsche parked in front of the garage.

  So he was probably holed up inside.

  Unless he caught a ride with someone else. The congressman had to have drivers on call 24/7, right?

  As I reached up and put my hands on the sharp edge of brickwork topping the wall to pull myself up again, the folly of what I was doing hit me.

  What did I really think I could find out here?

  Bradley might be there, and he might not.

  Had I thought I might look over the fence and see him in the act of burying the body of some as yet undiscovered victim?

  I brushed the grit and dirt off my hands and started back toward my car.

  As I approached the mouth of the alley, I heard the sound of a car moving slowly behind.

  No lights. Just the tires on the asphalt and the low growl of the engine.

  Maintaining my pace, I let my hands float out away from my hips and made sure they were open wide.

  The high beams hit me from behind, and I could see the dark emptiness in exactly my shape that they carved into the mist in front of me.

  There was only enough time to wonder if I should have drawn my gun and dove for cover before the cruiser’s candy bar lit up the alley in flashing red and blue, the tires ground to a stop, and the unit’s door opened.

  I didn’t recognize the uniform’s voice, but there was the unmistakable tone of cop in it. “Please stop where you are.”

  The drill was familiar. In my own uniform days, I’d been on the other end of it hundreds of times. I knew enough to do exactly as I was told. My adrenaline levels had peaked and were beginning to fall; his were still on the rise.

  “Turn around slowly.”

  I did, careful to keep my arms and hands in plain view.

  When he saw my face, there was a moment in which I thought he might have recognized me, but I wasn’t sure. There was no chance of my recognizing him. The high beams and flashing lights were working exactly as they were supposed to.

  “What’s your business here, sir?”

  “I’m on the job.” I gave it a moment to register with him. “Homicide. LBPD.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Beckett.”

  “ID?”

  “Right back pocket. Right underneath my gun.”

  “Sorry to do this, sir, but would you turn around and place your hands on the back of your head?”

  He believed me. It wouldn’t have been a question if he didn’t.

  “Yes, certainly.” I heard him approach and stop two feet behind me. He was looking at my gun. Raising my arms would have lifted the bottom edge of my jacket high enough for him to see the muzzle, and it was never too late for something like this to turn into a horrible mistake.

  “I’m just going to reach into your pocket for your badge, all right, Detective?”

  “Yes, go ahead.”

  He had to dig a bit to get a grip on the badge holder, but he found it, read it, and said, “I’m sorry, Detective. I just had to be sure.”

  “No worries. I would have done the same.” I wouldn’t have needed to, though. By the time I was riding solo, I knew every detective on the Homicide Detail by sight. There was never any doubt for me about where I wanted to end up. I hadn’t thought about that hunger in a long time.

  “Who put in the call?” I asked.

  “I’ve got it on the screen.”

  I followed him back to his cruiser, and he got in and moved the laptop mounted to the dash, articulated to a better angle for me to see. It was a name I didn’t recognize and an address that wasn’t the congressman’s.

 
Had I been in less pain, or even a little less tired, I would have gotten the uniform’s name and tried to connect with him for a few minutes. But I didn’t. I didn’t have it in me. Just told him to have a good night and went back to my car.

  It seemed a lot later than it had when I’d gotten there.

  “A guitar?” Harlan said. He hadn’t mentioned his medical situation, and I hadn’t asked.

  “Yeah.” We were in his living room. I tipped the Sam Adams bottle back and drained the last drops.

  “You don’t seem like the guitar type.”

  “That’s what I said. She didn’t really care, though. I think it’s just about the therapeutic value.”

  “Gonna do it?”

  “I don’t want to spend the money.”

  “Never pegged you for a tightwad.”

  “Who brought the beer?”

  He studied me for a few seconds, then got up and went into his bedroom. He came back out with what I first thought was a guitar case. When I got a closer look, though, I could tell it was the wrong shape. Not enough curves. “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A present.” He practically tossed it into my lap, then sat down right where he’d been and picked up his beer. “Open it up.”

  The case was much heavier than I’d expected. I searched around the edges for the clasps and undid them, one by one. Inside, cradled in dark-blue velvet, was a banjo. It looked like a good one, too. It was made from a dark wood that appeared to be aged mahogany, with mother-of-pearl inlays in the neck and polished brass encircling the round part on the bottom. It was worn from play but obviously well cared for.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked him.

  “Play it,” he said with a seriousness that surprised me. “For your therapy.”

  His tone took all the argument out of me.

  “I didn’t know you played the banjo,” I said.

  “I don’t anymore. Can’t do it with the arthritis.” That was the first time I’d ever heard him mention that ailment. I thought about questioning him, but I let it go. “If you’re not hung up on the guitar, that’ll be just as good. Probably even better for the dexterity.”

  I looked down at the instrument in my lap.

  Then back at Harlan.

  Then back at the banjo.

  I couldn’t guess exactly what he made of my expression, but I could tell that, somewhere deep below his stern countenance, he took pleasure in my bafflement.

  “What?” he said.

  I didn’t know what to say. I had no idea what to make of it. I couldn’t even recall giving any thought at all to the banjo since my brief teenage fascination with the stand-up comedy stylings of Steve Martin. And perhaps the occasional Deliverance reference.

  Harlan was enjoying the moment, but I felt like it was a delicate situation nonetheless.

  I said the only thing I could think to say. “Thank you.”

  My first estimation of the banjo’s weight was about fifteen pounds. By the time I had carried it home, though, I was convinced it was twice that. The pain in my shoulder felt like a dull knife, and it pulsated all the way down my arm. Along the way, I stopped half a dozen times to switch the shoulder strap on my briefcase to the other side and transfer the instrument from one hand to the other. As counterintuitive as it seemed, it was actually more comfortable to carry the load in my left hand. I think the weight helped to stretch some of the tightness and ache away.

  At home, I put the case down on the couch in the living room, hung my coat and shoulder holster over the back of one of the chairs at the dining table, then went into the kitchen. I poured myself half a glass of Grey Goose and topped it with orange juice, thought about grabbing something to eat, decided against it, and went back into the dining room. I spread photos, notes, and reports across the table.

  I started with their faces.

  Sara.

  Bailey.

  Jacob.

  The question was the same one we’d been asking for two days. Why?

  We had the missing wall safe as a possible motive for Sara’s murder. But why, then, the children? It was hard to believe they’d been murdered to eliminate them as witnesses. But what else was there? The MO matched that theory. But the kids couldn’t have testified. They wouldn’t have been any threat at all. Didn’t the killers know that?

  Maybe not. Contrary to what is depicted in popular culture, murder is rarely committed by geniuses, evil or otherwise. Killers are often shrewd but not highly intelligent. Almost all of the time, the simplest explanation is the one that turns out to be the truth.

  What was the simplest explanation here?

  Thrill killers, just in it for the visceral pleasure provided by extreme violence? Then why not torture the kids?

  A heist targeting the floor safe? Why, then, the extremity of what was done to Sara?

  Could it have been some combination of the two, as Marty had suggested?

  I wound up staying up most of the night searching for other possible theories. There was nothing else viable that I could put together with the evidence at hand. I couldn’t make sense of the story. Not yet.

  My father died when I was five. Among the things he left behind was a garage full of tools. For years after he was gone, I would nail and hammer and saw and generally destroy just about anything I could get my hands on. For some reason I’ve never fully understood, I particularly loved sawing wood. Tree limbs, two-by-fours, broken broomsticks. Any scrap I could find, I would clamp in the vise on the workbench and cut. There was one old wood saw that was my favorite. I had no idea of its true age, but when I was a boy, it seemed older than anything I’d ever held in my own hands. Except for the teeth, which were polished to a fine gleam by constant use, the blade was the deep dull gray of aged steel. The handle was worn around the gripping surface, the bare wood itself almost as smooth as the varnish still adorning the corners and sides; and I took particular joy in imagining that it had been my father’s hand that had done the rubbing and wearing, and that my own hand was continuing what he had begun. I realize, of course, that the memory of the scent of sawdust, the soreness of my shoulder, and the tremendous sense of accomplishment I would feel as another piece of two-by-four clacked to the cement floor are stand-ins for the real memories I never had the chance to form.

  But I still have that saw.

  Late that night, after I’d turned the case over in my head as many times and in as many different ways as I could, I finally drifted off into a fitful sleep. I dreamed, as I often do, of pain. In the dream, my arm and shoulder and neck feel as though they are being rent by dozens of dull and jagged claws. The pain is greater than any I have ever felt and greater than any I can imagine, and in the disturbing logic of the dream, I will do anything to make it stop.

  Anything.

  I stumble out of my bedroom and into the garage of my childhood memories. From above the workbench, I pull my father’s saw from its place on the Peg-Board, rip my shirt off, and begin sawing at my shoulder. The teeth bite into my flesh, and somehow I know that this is the only answer for the agony. As I cut, the pain doesn’t worsen, but it changes. Each stroke of the blade causes another burning surge that makes me scream louder than the last, but I continue.

  With each stroke, the blade rips deeper into my flesh. Blood spurts forward and back with the motion of the saw. Ragged bits of muscle and sinew clog the teeth.

  Even when the edge of my father’s saw catches on the bone of my shoulder and sends a violent jolt down my spine, I continue.

  It goes on and on and on.

  Finally, my arm falls to the floor. It’s only then as I look down at it, flopping and twitching on the cold concrete, that I see how much blood I’ve lost. A huge deep-red pool. I fall into it, splashing, fully aware that I am bleeding to death. My gaze drifts up into the rafters, and I begin to fade.

  And then the most horrific moment of the entire dream comes upon me.

  The saw has worked.

  The pain is gone.


  Six

  THE NEXT MORNING, a little before seven, I called Goodman. Something told me he’d be awake. “Can I buy you breakfast?”

  I was at The Potholder waiting for him a few minutes after they unlocked the front door. I sat at the small table in the back corner of the front room and started reviewing my notes. When the waitress came, I told her I was waiting for someone but went ahead and ordered an omelet with corned beef and bacon that they called “The Rancher” and a cup of coffee.

  The walls of the place were hung with hundreds of pictures taken of people all over the world holding up handwritten signs that said, Eat at The Potholder. Years ago, when I’d first been promoted to Homicide, I was assisting on a domestic murder on which Dave Zepeda was the principal. He was taking photos of the vic—a middle-aged woman who had been beaten to death by her husband—and he told me to squat next to her. It was one of my earliest cases with the detail, and I’d been as anxious to please the vets as an adopted Jack Russell on his first day out of the pound. Once I was down on my haunches, he handed me a piece of cardboard and told me to hold it up to the camera. At the time, I didn’t realize how careful he had been to let me see only one side of it. He snapped several pictures and told me I’d done a good job. I didn’t think any more about it until a new eight-by-ten showed up on the squad room wall of me kneeling down next to the bloody and bruised woman, holding up an Eat at The Potholder sign.

  I’d never seen Dave as disappointed as he was when The Potholder refused to hang it on the wall even long enough to “get” me with it. Every time I took it down off the wall of the squad room where it had found a final resting place, a day or two later a new copy would appear. Eventually, when I had developed a sense of gallows humor strong enough to win the old-timers’ approval, I gave up and it disappeared, leaving me grateful that the Homicide crew thought that was hazing enough for a new D3.

  I considered sharing that story with Goodman. We’d only spent a few minutes together, but my instincts told me he’d see it as a tactic deployed to ingratiate myself to him. Which, of course, was what the whole breakfast meeting was. The only question was how obvious I should be about it.