The Hanged Man

by T. J. MacGregor

  She laughed. “Most people.”

  “How does it fit in with horrors like the Holocaust?”

  “I guess it was a collective decision to participate in that experience.”

  “Why?”

  “To learn certain lessons, to teach other people something. It was a mass event, something that brought the issue of human rights into mainstream consciousness. The O.J. trial was the same thing. Regardless of whether he was innocent or guilty, the trial and the verdict brought attention to race relations, spouse abuse, corruption.”

  “How do you reconcile your beliefs with what happened to your husband?”

  Her response didn’t come as quickly this time. “I’m still working on that one. Let’s keep it simple. What would you like most to be doing?”

  “I’d like to own an import shop.”

  “Neat.”

  His ex had never used that adjective, he thought.

  “What kind of shop do you imagine?”

  He described it to her: the Guatemalan huipiles sharing space on the walls with hand-carved paddles from the Amazon; the varied pygmy figurines of gods and goddesses the ancients had worshipped; more modern items carved from jade and lapis.

  “How big a store would it be?”

  He had never thought of the physical store, only of what it would contain. “I don’t know.”

  “I think the secret to manifesting anything is to visualize what you want, to see the outcome in detail. If you can do it with high expectations and a great deal of emotion, it’ll come about.”

  Shades of the nine insights in The Celestine Prophecy, he thought. He had read the book only because it supposedly took place in Peru. But from the beginning, it had been obvious to Sheppard that the author had never stepped foot in Peru. He failed to describe or even name a plant or tree; he didn’t possess so much as a tourist’s sense of Hispanic passions; and he had his Indians all mixed up. The ruins in Peru had been built by the Incans, not the Mayans.

  For Sheppard, these discrepancies had detracted from the insights, made them seem as fraudulent as the Peru the author described. Too bad. He stood at a point in his life where he could use a little magic, a few synchronicities.

  “You think it’s all bullshit,” she said.

  “Maybe not all of it.”

  He had a sudden, vivid image of himself and Mira making love. Her black hair fanned out against a pale sheet, her skin looked soft, drawn snugly over the exquisite geometry of her bones. At this very second, this image represented what he wanted most. The Zen of desire, a result of wild hormones and a pathetic sex life.

  The visage, though, seemed so clear and real to him, it created an intense, powerful heat that started in his groin, sped up his spine, and seemed to leap away from him and into the space between them. She felt it, he could see it in her eyes, in the sudden tension in her body. Then he moved toward her, his feet gliding inches above the floor, his desire burning like a sun in the center of his chest. But before he reached her chair, the doorbell rang.

  The intrusion shocked him and he stopped where he was, the echo ringing in these silent rooms, their eyes locked together. The second peal snapped him back completely into the moment. He nearly had made a fool of himself.

  “Pizza Hut,” he quipped. “Be right back.”

  He hurried up the hall to answer the door, grateful now that the bell had rung. Just what the hell had he thought he was going to do, anyway? Drop to his knees in front of her chair? Gather her into his arms? Right.

  The woman on the front porch looked too well-heeled to be selling anything door-to-door. She wore black slacks and a red blazer that accentuated the paleness of her skin. Only true snowbirds had skin as pale as hers. Her light blonde hair, straight, thick, and chin-length, had been cut to move as she moved, with exquisite grace. Her sunglasses, designer chic, had cost probably three hundred bucks. He knew because his ex-wife had owned a pair. Her entire outfit, in fact, from the sunglasses to her shoes and black leather purse, had probably cost a cool grand.

  A rich snowbird. Maybe a friend of the Steeles? Only a rich woman in her late forties would have the body of a thirty-year-old.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Uh, hi.” She smiled quickly and planted her sunglasses firmly on the top of her head. Her eyes, a mesmerizing mix of green and blue, regarded him as though he were an annoying insect. “Who’re you?”

  “Who’re you?” he shot back.

  “Lenora Fletcher, FBI.”

  The name slapped him in the face like a wet towel. Fletcher the Quantico legend? The only woman in the history of the Bureau to head up the training center at Quantico? Here? Why?

  She slipped a badge from her blazer pocket, flashed it in front of him, then stepped past him and into the house. Her lovely eyes swept from wall to wall, down the hall, then fixed on him. “So, let’s start over again. Who’re you?”

  “Wayne Sheppard, Broward County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “And you’re in charge of the Steele homicide, Mr. Sheppard?”

  It wouldn’t take much to dislike this woman. “That’s right. What’s the FBI’s interest in this case?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.” She started down the hall, her leather pumps tapping against the marble.

  Sheppard blocked her in three strides. “You need a warrant to search this house, Ms. Fletcher.”

  She smiled all too sweetly, revealing a mouth filled with Pepsodent-bright teeth. “I have a warrant.” And out of her blazer pocket it came, signed and stamped by a federal judge in Miami. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  “I’ll need to verify your badge number before I can accept the warrant.”

  She laughed out loud. “Really. Well, verify away.” She proffered her badge again and he jotted down the number. “Where would you like me to wait while you waste my time?”

  “In the living room.”

  Her shoes clicked down the hall. She nodded hello to Mira, who murmured, “Hi,” then asked Sheppard where the bathroom was.

  He pointed to his right. “Down that way.”

  Mira left, Fletcher perched her dainty little ass at the edge of a rattan couch, and Sheppard went out to the car to get Gabby’s cellular phone. Although her search warrant had come out of Miami, he suspected D.C. was her territory and in D.C. he knew of one man to call for the answers.

  Patrick O’Maliey’s number rang twice before his booming Irish voice answered. “O’Malley.”

  “Shep here.”

  “You’re shittin’ me.” He laughed and Sheppard could see his freckled face and the flaming red hair now paling to gray at the temples. “We’ve been doing e-mail so long, it’s weird to hear your voice, man. You in town?”

  “No such luck. I need a favor. Could you run a Bureau badge number for me?”

  “Shoot.”

  Sheppard glanced at Fletcher as he ticked off her badge number. She looked both amused and bored, like the kind of woman who would now pull out her nail file and go to work on her manicure.

  O’Malley sucked in his breath. “Jesus, man. Fletcher? The Lenora Fletcher? What’s going on?”

  “Good question.”

  “You can’t talk freely.”

  “Right.”

  “She’s nearby?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Christ. Listen real good, Shep. The last guy who fucked with her ended up in Alaska for a couple of years, you hear what I’m saying?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “She’s Krackett’s right arm and the grapevine is saying that Friday night Krackett made the unofficial announcement that she’s sliding into his spot when he retires. So if she’s down there, it’s major.”

  But what the hell did it have to do with Steele? He couldn’t ask right now, not with Fletcher in the room. “Thanks, buddy, that clarifies things.”

  “I can give you more if we talk later, Shep. Better yet, check your e-mail.”

&
nbsp; “Will do. Thanks again.”

  He hung up and Fletcher stood. “Satisfied, Mr. Sheppard?”

  “For now.”

  “How long were you with the Bureau?” she asked.

  “Long enough to find the answers I need.”

  She smiled affably and twirled her sunglasses with the deftness of a cheerleader manipulating a baton. “Then you were also there long enough to know that some answers can be detrimental to your well-being, Mr. Sheppard.”

  And he, the man who could be unemployed by the end of the week, just grinned. “Alaska would be fascinating.”

  Fletcher’s eyes widened slightly, the only hint of a reaction. She started to say something, but Mira returned just then, her purse over her shoulder, everything about her shouting that she was ready to leave.

  “I didn’t get your name,” Fletcher said, looking pointedly at Mira.

  “Jane Doe.” She looked at Sheppard. “I’ll be outside.” And with that, she headed for the door.

  “You’re welcome to stay while I conduct my search,” Fletcher said.

  “I don’t think so,” Sheppard replied and strolled up the hall with Fletcher’s eyes burning holes in his back.

  From where he stood, Hal could see Rae, stretched out on a towel in the sun, her body like some lovely dream he had begun to recall.

  After Body Heat had finished, he had fixed them a late lunch and she had wandered out to the platform. She looked as if she had dozed off, but it might be a trick, he couldn’t trust her yet. So he shut his eyes and reached, hurling a part of his consciousness into her.

  She lingered at the edge of sleep, images flicking through her with startling rapidity. Thanks to Steele, Hal knew these were hypnogogic images, mind pictures the psyche tossed out as a person sank toward the first stage of sleep. A beach. Rae tossing a ball to her son. The two of them splashing in the surf. Nostalgia.

  He pulled back, opened his eyes. He hadn’t solved the problem of the son yet. Rae’s separation from her son, her gloom and doom, would separate her from Hal as well. But worse, he didn’t know where the kid had been when he’d shot Steele. He couldn’t understand how he had overlooked such a vital detail, especially since he had spent the last year watching her, following her, learning her routines and habits. Suppose the boy actually had seen something? Suppose he had seen enough to describe Hal to the cops? He needed to know what was going on out there, in the world beyond the chickee.

  Hal glanced around, checking for anything she might use as a weapon, went into the den, and shut the door.

  On those nights when loneliness suffused him like some ancient curse, he only needed to turn on the TV, aim the dish, and presto, he had his targets. He didn’t know why, but he found it easier to reach when he had an image of the person or place in front of him—a photo, a videotape, a drawing, nearly anything would work.

  He turned on the TV, adjusted the knob for the dish, popped a fresh tape into the VCR, and switched it on as well. He tuned into a local tri-county news station, the best bet for what he was looking for.

  After ten minutes of weather news, a photograph of Steele filled the screen. Hal quickly raised the volume.

  “The investigation into the murder of prominent criminologist Andrew Steele continues. His body was discovered Friday morning by the family housekeeper, in his home in Fort Lauderdale. His young son was rushed to the hospital in a coma and his wife, Rae Steele, a high school teacher, is still missing.”

  Hospital. That confirmed his impressions about the boy.

  “Wayne Sheppard, a detective with the Broward County Sheriff’s Department…” Steele’s photo vanished. In its place appeared a shot of a tall, lanky man in jeans and a cotton shirt, reading from a prepared statement.

  No suspects at this time… more details will be forthcoming… Blah, blah, blah. Hal leaned close to the screen, studying Sheppard’s face, memorizing it. Once he had committed a face to memory, he could reach without a photo or a picture, and reach nearly as far and as deeply.

  The newscaster’s face appeared again. “It isn’t known at this time how Steele’s son was injured or what his condition is. Police are asking that anyone who has seen Rae Steele to please call the Broward Sheriff’s Department.” Her photo now came on the screen; it didn’t do her justice. She looked uncertain, almost frail, a face in a prison mug shot.

  Hal turned the TV to the VCR mode, rewound the tape, and played it to the point where Sheppard began speaking. Then he froze the image and peered into the cop’s eyes. Give me what you’ve got, fucker. He reached hard, stretching himself to the very limit of his ability.

  At first, he heard only loud, irritating static, the incessant chatter of the man’s inner world. Hal pushed deeper, deeper, until he touched the place that mattered. In every human being such a spot existed, a soft, tender field that yielded treasures if you applied the right pressure in the right way. And now that he had found Sheppard’s spot, he pushed harder.

  The images coursed fast and furiously through Hal. He encountered useless skit about Sheppard’s car, his home, his lack of money, about the absences in his life. But Hal found a couple of gems that stunned him: images of the tarot cards that he had sent Rae and the face of the attractive young woman to whom Sheppard had taken the cards.

  The psychic.

  He reached more deeply to find her name, but only came up with “one” and “mirror”—or a word that sounded like that. A starting point. He ejected the tape, put it in the drawer with other tapes, turned off the TV.

  Hal opened the door to check on Rae. No change. She hadn’t moved from the towel. He went over to her, stood at her feet. His eyes followed the long, graceful contours of her bare legs, the sweet curve of her buttocks, the angles her arms made to her body. Christ, just looking at her made him hard. He wanted her so badly he could taste the need.

  But the first time had to be perfect. Nothing forced. He wasn’t a rapist, like Manacas.

  Hal returned to the den, left the door open a crack so he would hear her when she woke, then sat in his rocker. The routine for a “real-time” reach was simple. Bare feet flat against the floor. Palms resting lightly against his thighs. Eyes shut. Conjure the face. Sheppard’s face. Now he filled in the details—the sandy color of the man’s hair, the thrust of his jaw, his mustache. Now reach beyond the video image, the chickee, the Everglades, reach beyond the river of grass. And the reach swept him away.

  Chapter 15

  Sheppard’s place surprised Mira. She’d expected the impersonal digs of a bachelor cop. Instead, his town house looked like a cluttered import shop. Most of the pieces he’d collected reflected his upbringing in South America, where his father had worked for an oil company. Woven Ecuadorian rugs. Shards of ancient pottery from Mexico. Religious icons from Peru that looked as old as the planet itself. Hand-carved paddles from the Amazon. Colorful Indian necklaces from Colombia. A blowgun from Brazil, complete with the bark pouch that held curare-dipped darts.

  “This is one of my favorites,” said Sheppard, tour guide. He plucked a chunk of rock off one of the shelves that lined the hall. “It’s from the top of the tepui where Angel Falls begins.”

  “And this fellow?” She pointed at what looked like a shrunken human head. “Is it what I think it is?”

  “Yeah. It came from a tribe of cannibals in the Venezuelan interior.”

  “Jesus, Sheppard.”

  “I know, I know. My ex wanted to burn it.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” She leaned against the wall, her thumb moving over a lapis penguin from Chile. “You’re a cop with the heart of Indiana Jones. How the hell can you stand it?”

  ‘‘I can’t.”

  The plaintive nakedness in his admission made her want to slip her arms around him, pat him on the back, and assure him everything was going to be okay. “So get out of law enforcement.”

  “And do what? Become a lawyer? No, thanks. Open my import shop? That takes capita
l.” He set the chunk of rock from Angel Falls back on the shelf and leaned against the wall next to her. “Look, it’s great to believe that everyone can follow a dream and make a living at it. But in reality, it’s just not that easy to do.”

  “That’s just a belief. Change it and the reality changes.”

  Old hurts echoed in his smile. “That’s too simple. It’s not how things work.”

  The skeptic’s lament, she thought. But she’d had this same argument with herself over the years, particularly after her husband’s death. In her heart she believed what she said, but in the mundane world of bills to pay and deadlines to meet, she played in Sheppard’s court.

  “If you try it first with something small, Shep, you’ll see that it does work. The problem is us. How we’ve conditioned ourselves to think. We seem to believe that we have to suffer and struggle to get what we want.”

  “Okay, something small. I’ll start small.”

  “What?”

  He reached out, his fingers slipped into her hair, and he drew her face toward his. His mouth tasted exotic, of the places he’d been, of the dreams he had dreamed, and that taste literally transported her.

  Mira suddenly caught a whiff of fog, cold, biting fog, felt the scrape of a beard against her cheek, and knew that he wore a cloak that billowed out around him like a sail filled with wind. His hair seemed darker, he wasn’t as tall.

  London? A life in London?

  His hand found the bare skin at the nape of her neck, his fingers slid through her hair, and she began to ache all over inside. Their bodies pressed together, her hip bones cutting into him, his hands at her back, her hips, her ribs, her breasts. They stumbled through the hall and into his bedroom, groping at each other’s clothes as they fell onto an unmade bed. His mouth crushed hers, they rolled across a comforter until she lay beneath him. He lifted up on his elbows, smoothing her hair away from the sides of her face. His eyes locked onto hers, eyes that she sank into, blue that she swam through with the ease of a fish.