The Night Watchman

by Richard Zimler

  That was how I came to realize that the Spectre was a lot more efficient than anyone normally was at finding clues. He was able to decide real quickly what was significant and meaningful in a room – what had been removed or added, for instance. Dad’s tests trained him for that. They made him like a blind person who hears tiny, faraway sounds that other people can’t.

  When I was a kid, I figured the Spectre didn’t feel the emotions that living people felt. And because of that, he could focus on finding Ernie and exclude everything else. But now I know that he gets panicked. In fact, I think he knows more fear than anybody I’ve ever met, even my brother.

  Kids don’t have the experience to know what is unusual or unique, and I assumed that everyone was like me and got messages on their hand or some other part of their body. Only when I told Mom about them did I realize that I was more fortunate than other people. She said that she never got messages, and that nobody she knew ever did. She said that I ought not to tell anyone about them. It would be our secret.

  O nosso segredo, she said in Portuguese, with her hand resting on top of my head, as if she were blessing me, which made it seem as if she might still care about me in her own, mostly silent way. Although if I wanted to be mean, I’d say her own useless way. Because she didn’t defend Ernie and me enough. I try not to think about that but I do.

  When I was eleven, in September of 1981, we had a guest preacher from Denver – a theology professor named Thurmond – who told us in his sermon that angels didn’t really exist. He said they were metaphors for how God watched over us. The old man’s words stunned me with a kind of electric jolt, because I knew instantly that he didn’t know what he was talking about.

  That’s when I stopped calling whoever left me messages ‘the Spectre’. Instead, I started calling him by an angelic name, and I chose Gabriel, though I never meant that he was the biblical archangel; I would have had to have been a lot crazier than I was to think that a powerful angel from the Bible would come down from heaven to visit us at our ranch in rural Colorado and help me take Dad’s tests. No, I figured that my Gabriel was just a minor sort of angel who had only a tiny bit of God’s power – not enough to save our lives.

  Gabriel always calls me H in his notes to me, so I started calling him G. Before I get a message from him, I always lose track of myself. I usually disappear for between ten minutes and an hour. I never know where I go.

  The notes I receive are always printed – never written in script.

  At some point (I must have been twelve or thirteen), I began to figure out that G took control of my body. Though for a long time I wasn’t sure of that, because I never came back to myself knowing what had happened to me. I never asked Ernie to tell me what I’d been up to, because I didn’t want him to know that I hadn’t been there – in my body, I mean.

  My temples usually throb when he wants to take me over. But if G comes really fast, in an emergency, I get no warning – his entry feels as though I’ve been walloped on the back of my head.

  I’ve known for sure that G takes control of me ever since I asked one of my police colleagues to watch me when I examined the blood-soaked clothing of a restaurant owner who’d been stabbed to death. That was sixteen years ago.

  Staring at really bad bloodstains makes me vanish, though I can sometimes hold G off if I’m determined enough.

  My police colleague told me I’d rushed around crime scene as if the walls of the restaurant were about to collapse on us. The few words I’d spoken to him were in English. I’d also asked him for a cigarette, and I don’t smoke.

  Gabriel knows Portuguese, I’m pretty sure, but he refuses to write it. He runs around a crime scene like his mind has been set on fire. Maybe because there’s a countdown always nearing zero in his world.

  When I was fourteen, I vanished for more than a week on two occasions. I was drinking too much at the time. In fact, I spent most of seventh and eighth grade in a beer-soaked haze. After an all-night binge in Gallup one Friday night, I went to bed in March and woke up in April. Losing ten days scared me really badly.

  I came back to myself with a tattoo on my arm. I tell people it’s an American eagle, and that I had it done because I was feeling patriotic. But it’s a Thunderbird. My Sioux friend Nathan told me once that a great and wise Thunderbird watched over me from the spirit world, and I guess G wanted me to remember that.

  Gabriel went to school for me when I disappeared for ten days. My teachers told me later that I’d been real quiet in class – and that it was a welcome surprise.

  When I returned to myself, his message in my hand read: H – take care of your body or I won’t let you have it!

  I no longer drink even wine or beer. It’s too big a risk. I’d never be able to look at Ana or my kids the same way if they knew about Gabriel. Because they’d never look at me the same way. They’d think I might be crazy and dangerous. And Ana might never want to speak to again. But even if she managed to get over her anger at me – and her fear of what was always hiding inside me – I wouldn’t want to ever give G a chance to speak to her and the kids. I wouldn’t want him telling them what happened to Ernie and me when we were little. Because they probably wouldn’t believe him. After all, they might not even believe me. And if they didn’t believe us, I couldn’t stay married. It would be impossible for me to trust Ana ever again.

  By now, I understand that G comes to me when I feel threatened or when a person I love is in danger, though sometimes he doesn’t take over when I would expect him to. I guess he knows when there’s nothing he can do for me.

  Gabriel doesn’t always share all that he’s thinking with me. He’s canny. And though his suspicions aren’t always right, he’s helped me find evidence that has put some very evil people in prison.

  I don’t think that G lets affection or everyday considerations get in his way. I’m pretty sure, in fact, that he’d kill the murderers, rapists and child abusers I interrogate if he were certain he could get away with it – meaning, not get me in trouble. Maybe it’s because I’m sure that he remembers a lot more about what happened to us in Colorado than I do. In fact, I think Dad is still alive wherever G lives. That can’t be very good for his peace of mind. Though maybe he also gets a chance to see Dad dance a tango with Ernie in his arms from time to time. Or teach him the melody of a Patsy Cline song. I’d like to see those things myself – to be there for the good times. I’d like that a lot.

  Just before I got married, I went to the Psychology Department Library at the University of Lisbon and consulted The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In it, I learned that identity isn’t always fixed in individuals who’ve been terrorized as kids. They can develop one or more separate identities that are better able to cope with unbearable situations.

  Two sentences in that book gave me my first-ever panic attack. I don’t know exactly what they said because I never dared read them again, but they went something like this: Those with Dissociative Identity Disorder tend to have at least one personality who believes that he or she is bad and deserves to be punished – even beaten, brutalized or killed. Often, that is what their childhood abusers have told them.

  After I read that, I couldn’t get enough air, and when a sharp pain cut through my chest, I figured I was having a heart attack. I lay my head to the desk where I’d been reading and closed my eyes. I thought it would be a good thing if I died because it would save Ana from marrying someone as damaged as me.

  When I felt strong enough to stand up, I walked to my car and sat inside it for a couple of hours. I realized I’d been fighting for survival since the day Ernie was born and had never stopped.

  My biggest fear is that I might one day hurt my kids or Ana – hurt them in ways that can never be undone. That’s why I asked my wife to learn to use a gun just after we were married. I know that sounds crazy to most people. It certainly did to her, and she refused to take any of the classes I’d signed her up for.

  If I’m ever tempted to hu
rt Ana or the kids, I’ll drive out past Évora on local road 256, to a grove of oaks and pines I’ve already picked out, and I’ll put the barrel of my police pistol into my mouth and pull the trigger.

  My second biggest fear is that I might lose my mind and not come back to myself – not ever. Which would mean I’d be dead even if I were alive, because everything that made me me would be gone.

  I’d never see Ana, the kids or Ernie again.

  After I read about myself in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, I vowed never to read another word about what was wrong with me. And never to speak about it with anyone. I hated knowing that the same capacities that saved me also tainted me in ways that doctors had classified.

  I worry every day of my life that my boys have inherited bad genes from me.

  People don’t want to know what violent torment does to kids. They like living in a make-believe world and need to believe in happy endings. Even hospital officials who should intervene don’t want to have to go through all the trouble of filling out forms and risk being threatened by an indignant parent.

  When we went to the hospital after our first test, the doctor believed what Dad told him – that I was the one who’d hurt Ernie. Dad said that Ernie and I had been playing with a garden shears. ‘Their roughhousing got out of hand,’ he said.

  When the physician looked to Mom for corroboration, she nodded. I could tell from the downward slant of her eyes that she was hoping he’d see she was lying, but he didn’t. He looked down at me as if I were dirt. ‘Watch yourself, young man!’ he snarled, a finger of warning pointing at me. ‘Because I swear on the Good Book that if this ever happens again, I’ll make sure you wind up in a juvenile prison for a real long time!’

  ‘You hear that, Hank!’ Dad told me, as if he’d tried endless times to teach me to be kind to my little brother. ‘Next time, there’ll be nothing I can do to save you.’

  My reading at the Psychology Library in Lisbon made me realize, too, that Gabriel probably wasn’t an angel or even a ghost. Unless, of course, you define angel as a part of you that looks after all the other parts, and who guards everyone you love. And who has experienced such terrible things that he can never be entirely at ease, either in his world or ours.

  Chapter 6

  Every murder is a failure – to forgive, to understand, to find justice any other way. To find a doorway out.

  So what particular failure lay soaking in the blood of Coutinho’s carpet?

  The most likely possibility was that one of his friends or acquaintances hadn’t been able to convince him to give up his affair with his wife or girlfriend.

  What told me most about the killer was the gag, which implied that he and I shared a particularly fear – of another man’s voice. And what he might order us to do.

  In the living room, I discovered that Gabriel had taken down all the paintings from the walls. David was still examining the victim. I asked him to make arrangements for the body to be taken away; Coutinho’s wife and daughter would be arriving soon, and I didn’t want them to see him lying in a pool of his own blood. Later, I realized it was a sign of how badly Moura’s suicide had unnerved me that I didn’t realize that Susana might have preferred to see her husband at their home rather than at the morgue.

  H: bad memories under girl’s bed. Painting by Almeida in the wrong place. Sneak a peek at the French–Farsi dictionary. Why doesn’t Sandi display any photos of herself?

  Reading Gabriel’s message again made me realize that I’d expected to see pictures of Sandi in her bedroom because both my sons had dozens of photographs of themselves and their school friends tacked to their corkboards.

  After moistening my handkerchief at the kitchen sink and rubbing the ink off my palm, I found Fonseca dusting for fingerprints on the handle of the door leading to the garden. ‘Want another cigarette?’ he asked hopefully, pleased to have a partner in crime.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I replied, wishing there was a way to prevent G from smoking – and from talking to my colleagues.

  I stepped outside into the sun, because the heat soaking into me would help me re-enter my body. When I felt up to a conversation, I asked Fonseca to finish up and get back to the lab, so he could start testing the evidence he’d already collected. I also told him to seal off the library; that was where Coutinho had been just before his murder and I didn’t want anyone going in there, not even Senhora Coutinho.

  ‘But Vaz is already back at the lab,’ he told me in a puzzled voice. ‘He did tell you he was going, didn’t he?’

  Lying seemed my safest option. ‘He whispered something to me while I was talking on the phone to headquarters, but I didn’t pay much attention to what he was saying. I guess this murder has me a bit distracted.’

  ‘It’s all the blood. You know how you get when there’s a lot.’ Pulling away the transparent tape he’d pressed to the doorknob, he lifted off a jumble of fingerprints. ‘I love my work!’ he said, beaming.

  When I didn’t return his smile, he asked, ‘Is it just this case that’s got you so upset?’

  I told him about Moura’s suicide. In an off-key tenor, and with thick Portuguese accent, he sang, ‘Mama said there’ll be days like this.’

  ‘The Shirelles, 1961,’ I told him.

  ‘How the hell do you know so much about old American songs and forget so many conversations?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re the star of Forensics, you figure it out!’

  Fonseca’s appreciative laughter made me feel a bit safer.

  Luci joined us. ‘No sneakers or gloves, and no homemade silencers,’ she told me with a disappointed shrug. Grime blackened her cheek and she was sweating badly.

  I suggested she take a break but she insisted on helping me hang the paintings back on the wall. Sure enough – just as G had implied in his message – the frame around the Almeida drawing was too small to have created the square of unbleached yellow paint on the wall behind it. A slightly larger work had been here. Had the Almeida been moved by the murderer to substitute a painting he’d stolen? We searched in vain around the room for the nail on which it might have hung.

  G must have looked through the French–Farsi dictionary and spotted something he needed me to see, so we headed next to the library. On flipping through the book, I discovered a cubbyhole hollowed out between pages 302 and 457. Hidden snugly inside was a flash drive the size of a small lighter. I held it up for Luci. ‘Coutinho must have been looking at some files when he heard noises downstairs,’ I said. ‘He took it out and put it back in its cubby hole, but he didn’t want to take the time to carry a chair over to the shelves so he could slip the dictionary back into its spot on the top shelf.’

  I stood on the chair so I could reach into the space on the top shelf where it had been kept, but I ended up only with dusty fingertips. I handed Luci Coutinho’s keys. ‘Lock the door from the inside and then open it again. Let’s see how well sound carries in here.’

  After about thirty seconds, the tumblers clicked around. Luci bounded up the stairs and smiled girlishly on reentering the library. Her enthusiasm charmed me; I realized she probably even enjoyed looking through the trash cans. ‘Well?’ she asked eagerly.

  ‘Coutinho would have heard the key turning in the lock,’ I told her.

  ‘So he probably assumed his lover had returned – that she’d forgotten something. Or maybe they’d planned for her to come back all along.’

  ‘If not, he might have figured that his wife and daughter had come home unexpectedly.’

  ‘And if he’d been looking at files,’ she speculated, ‘then the laptop might have still been on when he went downstairs to see who’d just arrived.’

  ‘Luci, for the moment, I don’t want you to mention to anyone that we’ve found the victim’s flash drive,’ I told her, eager for a chance to search its files before handing it over to Forensics. I put it in an evidence bag and stashed it in my coat pocket.

  I called Joaquim, our computer wiz, and he
confirmed that the MacBook Air’s battery had run down to zero by the time it reached him. He agreed to take a look this weekend.

  Back downstairs, I told Fonseca to dust the Almeida painting for fingerprints and then hang it back on the wall.

  ‘You don’t want me to bring it back to the lab?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘Not yet. I may need it to jog Senhora Coutinho’s memory.’

  I then handed him Coutinho’s French–Farsi dictionary and told him to bag it as evidence, explaining that I’d kept a flash drive I’d found in a cubbyhole cut in its pages. ‘I’ll be going through its contents over the weekend and give it to you on Monday,’ I added.

  Turning to Luci, I said, ‘And now you and I need to search the daughter’s room.’

  ‘And then?’ she asked.

  ‘Then we’ll question all of Coutinho’s neighbours. After that, lunch.’

  ‘Lunch? By then, it’ll be dark!’ she said, laughing.

  Her eyes took on a handsome depth. She must have dreamt about detective work since she was a kid; I recognized the symptoms. And beating underneath that realization was another that was far more important for me: I worked more trustingly with a female inspector.

  On reaching Sandi’s room, I took the panda off her pillow and handed it to Luci. ‘There’s a stain that’s probably blood. Give it to Fonseca when you see him.’

  ‘But the daughter was in the Algarve when her father was killed. I can’t see what—’

  ‘Indulge me,’ I interrupted. I dropped down on the bed. ‘Now, tell me what you’ve heard about my methods.’

  ‘Just that you sometimes get into a kind of frenzy, sir.’

  ‘What else?’ I smiled to put her at ease.

  ‘The men say that you race around the crime scene. You don’t usually say anything, but if you do, you can be pretty rude.’