Sky's Shadow

by Ted Galdi

  “Unbelievable. You’re going to let one little white lie of mine cloud your judgment. And let the man who killed your partner kill more people.”

  “There’s a lot more wrong with you than one little white lie. Your entire life is a lie. A dark one.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  “This is a pretty fascinating building architecturally, isn’t it? You should ask your father for his thoughts. I’m sure they’d be intriguing.”

  “And you should ask your father for his last name back.”

  A moment. “Have a safe flight to New York, Tommy.”

  “I thought you were cool. But you’re the same as everyone else. Just out for yourself.”

  “I’m out for this case.”

  “You were happy to let me do its necessary dirty work, weren’t you?”

  “I didn’t force you into any of it. You inserted yourself into the case. Crashed it is more apt.”

  “But as soon as things get choppy, you want nothing to do with me. Meanwhile, you’re just as responsible for what happened at the warehouse as me.”

  “That’s absurd. It wouldn’t have happened if you listened to me.”

  “You’re the one who brought him there. I didn’t invite him.”

  “I invited him to help rescue your ass.”

  “At the hospital I blamed it all on me so you could look good in front of your boss. I did you a favor. But I’m beginning to think you believed my lie. I’m beginning to think you actually feel you had nothing to do with this. Is it a defense mechanism to avoid the guilt in your own head?”

  “So you admit you’re a liar?”

  “I have the clarity to admit the three of us were in this investigation together. When I made progress, it was okay for you to benefit off of me. But now that something bad happened, it’s okay for you to turn your back on me? You can’t have it both ways, Jordana. Stop acting like a spoiled rich girl who thinks she can.”

  She shakes her head. “I have a feeling you weren’t always such a dick. When you’d go into those burning buildings to save those strangers. Then you went to prison. And because of your record, you couldn’t be a fireman anymore. You want to talk about defense mechanisms? To protect yourself, you convinced yourself people weren’t worth protecting. That everyone is out for you. Me. The whole FBI. The whole federal government for that matter. Random people you come across probably. That—”

  “Nice try. You—”

  “That the ugliness you saw in Attica inmates is universal. Which is why you have no qualms about lying to everyone’s face. Even people who are on your side. Living like that long enough will burn you out. Isn’t it starting to?”

  She slams the door on him.

  Fifty

  Tommy hunches forward. Puts his hands on his thighs. His breathing speeds up. The blue dumpster behind the FBI building wobbles in his field of vision. He feels his pulse rage against the side of his throat.

  He sinks to a knee. Wonders if this is a reaction to the heat. But he’s been hot before, in his heavy fire gear feet from flames, and never felt like this. A panic attack. Must be. Josh used to have them.

  Tommy closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Another. A few more. His eyes open. The dumpster still shakes. He needs to get away from this building. From Jordana, from the FBI. He staggers to his feet. Turns a corner and strides toward the street.

  The physical activity of walking helps a bit, distracts his mind from itself. He keeps doing it, going nowhere in particular, just moving, treading the sidewalk along Via Sorrento Parkway.

  A grove of trees along the road at the next intersection. He climbs a small dirt hill, steps out of the sun, under the canopy of leaves. He sits on a rock, takes out his FBI phone, and enters a number he still remembers after many years of not dialing it.

  “Hello?” a female voice says.

  “Hi mom.”

  A pause. “Tommy?”

  “Yeah.”

  A longer pause. “Oh, Tommy. It’s…so good to hear from you. What—”

  “Hey mom, can I ask you a question? Can I ask you a question, mom?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s just a question I need to ask. I wanted to ask it before and I didn’t. But now I think I need to know.”

  “Your voice sounds…are you okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m still in California.”

  “Why’re you still in California?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What is it you wanted to ask?”

  He runs a hand through his hair. “Why’d you do that to dad?”

  Silence.

  “Mom?” he says.

  “Yeah.”

  “He was a good dad. And he didn’t deserve that. And I’m just wondering, you know, I just think I should know why you did that to him.”

  “There’s a lot about your father you don’t know.”

  “Like what?”

  “I probably shouldn’t have done what I did. Not, at least…with a friend of his. I only did it because there were problems between us. You were so young back then. I kept them from you.”

  “Problems from what?”

  “Problems from…being people. We all have them. He certainly did. I do too. What sort of a man moves to Costa Rica with a girl about the age of his children and abandons his family? You don’t just turn into that man overnight, because of one…incident. You were that man for a long time.”

  “Maybe, yeah.”

  “You never saw that side of him, until you saw it all at once. You just knew the good. And you were such an…idealistic kid. If I told you about the other side of him, it would’ve…brought your whole world down. But with people, there’s usually another side.”

  “I guess.”

  “Is everything all right, Tommy?”

  “I hope.”

  “If you ever want to talk, about this, or anything else, call me. Anytime.”

  “Okay. I’ve got to go now.”

  “I love you.”

  A moment. “I love you too. Bye mom.”

  “Bye.”

  He hangs up. And stares at the trees for a while. His heartbeat calms. Objects stop spinning. He walks out of the wooded area, heads toward his car in the parking garage.

  “You get into a fight with an alligator, friend?” a vagrant in a dusty top hat asks.

  Tommy glimpses his torn sleeves dotted in blood. And chuckles. “Close enough.”

  The vagrant offers a bottle of booze wrapped in a paper bag. “For the pain?”

  “Thanks. But I’m good.”

  “Cool.” The vagrant has a sip, extends his hand.

  Tommy shakes it. “Tommy.”

  “Stardust.”

  “That’s a hell of a name.”

  “No, friend. It’s just a name. Just my name.”

  “Your parents give it to you?”

  “I don’t think anyone has a right to name you but yourself.”

  Tommy grins. “Makes sense.”

  “You have a tent around here?”

  “I have an apartment. In New York. It ain’t much bigger than a tent, though.”

  “The homes of all people are the same size, friend. The size of the world.”

  “I like that. It’s been a pleasure, Stardust. But I’ve got to get going.”

  “Where you off to, friend?”

  “I have a case to solve.” Tommy starts walking.

  “You a cop?”

  “No. I’m a firefighter.”

  Fifty-One

  Glen cuts into a steak. Two plates on the table across his, a bone in each, shredded meat lining the edges, all atop puddles of blood-colored juice. Bo and Hawks finished their meals in about three minutes, Glen now alone in the kitchen. The carnage in their dishes forces him to imagine Cora’s mutilated body. Thomas Dapino didn’t kidnap her. But someone surely did.

  He loses his appetite. Scrapes the remains from all three plates into Hawks’s
trashcan. Korn’s “Got the Life” blasts from the garage. Glen leaves the house, walks into the unattached structure. A mini arsenal of combat gear lines the shelves.

  “You full, brother?” Bo asks. His shirt is off. His fist slams into a punching bag Hawks clutches.

  “Oh yeah,” Glen says. He looks at Hawks. “Thanks for picking up lunch. Everything else too.”

  “I got you.”

  Six new coolers rest along the wall, next to a foldable metal table and bags of other supplies. Glen will perform his final round of surgeries in here tomorrow.

  “Hit it again,” Hawks screams.

  Bo slugs the heavy bag.

  “Harder,” Hawks yells. He turns up the music.

  Spit oozes from Bo’s mouth.

  “Make that bitch bleed,” Hawks shouts.

  Bo strikes the bag a few more times. “Woo.”

  “That’s it.” Hawks smacks the skin of Bo’s back. Then reaches into his pockets. He pours white powder on the edge of a pocketknife. “Sniff that pussy.” Bo snorts the powder.

  “What was that?” Glen asks.

  “Want some?” Hawks asks.

  “You didn’t answer my question. What was it?”

  “Crushed-up Advil.” He chuckles. “What do you think it was, man? A little white.”

  Glen glares at Bo, asks, “You do cocaine?”

  Bo wipes his nose. “We’ve got a big day, big night ahead of us. Getting amped.”

  “How often do you…engage in this?”

  “Relax man,” Hawks says. “He’s fine.”

  “This doesn’t concern you,” Glen says.

  “You’re in my garage. So it kind of does.”

  Bo steps between them. “Ease up. Both of you. Ease up.”

  Glen says, “This is just…a surprise. After all our conversations about the drug epidemic. About junkies. About how—”

  “Does he look like a junkie to you?” Hawks asks. “Is this man a bum living on the street? Does he have a needle sticking out of his arm?” Hawks does a bump of coke. The pupil of his non-patched eye is big. “You know what he looks like to me? A Goddamn American hero. And if he wants to enjoy a little toot in the privacy of his friend’s home, that’s his American right.”

  “It’s actually not his right. It’s against the law.”

  “So is murdering a barrack full of farmworkers. But you don’t see me trying to stop you.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How so?”

  Glen hesitates.

  “Don’t have an answer, college boy?” Hawks asks.

  “This is a dumb conversation. And I’m not having it.”

  “You think I’m dumb?”

  “I never said that.”

  “You think you’re smarter than me because you have more money?”

  “You didn’t seem to have a problem with my money when I was paying you your thirty-percent fee.”

  Hawks laughs. “What’d you even do in Iraq? Sit in an air-conditioned room with the other eggheads and play with a computer while real soldiers like me and Archer did the fighting?”

  Glen charges at him. Bo tries to block him, but Glen shoves him out of the way. He punches Hawks in the face. “Don’t ever question what I did over there,” Glen shouts.

  Hawks, twentyish pounds larger than Glen, nails him in the stomach.

  “Stop,” Bo yells. “Both of you. Stop.” He bear-hugs Glen, shaking with adrenaline. Hawks dabs blood from his lip. “I fought alongside both of you,” Bo says. “I know the shit both of you went through. You’ve both earned my respect for it. For life. Now shake hands like soldiers.”

  Glen and Hawks glower at each other. Glen sticks his hand out. Hawks shakes it.

  “There we go,” Bo says. He grips Glen’s shoulders. “If we’re going to steal that medical equipment, we need your head in the right place. You good?”

  “I’m good.” Glen points at Hawks’s pocket. “I never did coke. It gets you in the zone?”

  “Shit yeah.”

  “Give me a damn hit.”

  Fifty-Two

  Tommy is parked at a CVS about ninety miles north of San Diego, in Newport Beach, where that FBI agent on Jordana’s team mentioned Cora’s parents lived. He has the city, but not the address. Jordana of course knows it. But he doesn’t want to call her. And she wouldn’t even pick up if he did.

  He opens Google on his FBI phone. Searches “Address Stewart and Deborah Hall, Newport Beach CA.” Learns Stewart is an insurance executive and Deborah chairs a couple charities, but finds no address online.

  “Dammit,” he says.

  He takes his personal cellphone from the cup holder and calls Josh.

  “It’s all over the national news,” Josh says. “Shit is nuts.”

  “It’s nuttier than you know. Wait till I tell you the story of my day. But not now.”

  “Tell me, yo. I gotta hear.”

  “No time. I’m still…at it. Need to get to Brent’s wife.”

  “I saw her pic online. Chick is fire. Even pregnant.”

  “Stop being weird.”

  “How is that weird?”

  “If you’re her and you hear on the news your husband is a fugitive killer, you’re hiding from him, right?”

  “I’d assume.”

  “If your parents only live a few dozen miles from you in a nice beachside town, you’re probably hunkering down there, right?”

  “A childhood home can offer the same feelings of comfort and safety as a womb. Sigmund Freud once said—”

  “I don’t need a psychoanalysis, you psycho.”

  “Yes. Good chance she’s at her parents’.”

  “I’m not going to ask you to hack anything. I understand you’re not a wizard.”

  “Can I get you to put that in writing?”

  “Shut up. But I need the parents’ address. Nothing on Google. But there’s got to be some sort of directory with the info, right?”

  “If you crapped out on Google, the address isn’t online. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t find it.”

  “I need some tech advice here. Anything.”

  “You’ve given me countless demands since you got out of prison. But I think this is the first time you actually asked for advice. I’m honored.”

  “Am I going to regret it?”

  Silence for a few seconds as if Josh was thinking. “When you Googled her parents, did you see Facebook pages for them?”

  “LinkedIn. No Facebook.”

  “No, that won’t move the chains.”

  “I need yardage here.”

  “The daughter, Cora, the picture I saw. Didn’t look like a LinkedIn-type headshot. She was in casual clothes, at some smoothie shop.”

  “How is that relevant?”

  “The news site that posted the pic must’ve gotten it somewhere. Probably Facebook. Which means she has an account, and it’s probably public. And there’re—”

  “If she were going to list her address on Facebook, she’d use her current one in San Diego. She’s not there. I need—”

  “Yeah, bruh. I know. Nobody lists their address on Facebook anyway. Beside maybe eighty-year-olds.”

  “So what the hell am I doing on Facebook then?”

  “News site said she was thirty. About our age. Facebook was around when we were in high school. Her too.”

  “So?”

  “So back then she was still living at home. With her parents. Dig deep into her pics. Try to find one of her at the house. See if anything distinct is outside in the background.”

  “And if there is?”

  “Send me the photo. I’ll look at aerial footage of Newport Beach. See if I can pinpoint the part of town.”

  “Cool.”

  “Later.”

  Tommy hangs up. Finds Cora on Facebook and scrolls to the beginning of her photo history. He spots an outdoor shot of her smiling with a tall man in an expensive-looking sweater, must be her dad. They stand in the driveway of a Mediterranean-s
tyle house next to a Volkswagen Beetle with a bow atop, a “17” sign in it. In the background Tommy notices cliffs, the ocean below. He takes a screenshot and sends it to Josh.

  Tommy’s leg pumps while he waits for a response. About fifteen minutes later he receives a text:

  Wambold Lane

  Fifty-Three

  Tommy turns onto Wambold Lane. Cruises along glancing at houses. Recognizes the Mediterranean one from Cora’s Facebook page, parks a hundred or so feet away.

  He opens his trunk. Takes off his ripped shirt, puts on a black tee shirt he brought from New York. Then, in case he gets jammed up, pulls out his axe, stashed since the trip back from Tijuana. He slips it in the rear waist of his suit pants, drapes his shirt over it, and treads the pavement toward the home.

  A woman walking a tiny, fluffy dog waves at him. With a smile he waves back. He descends the sloping street toward the Halls’ property, an eight-foot brick wall enclosing it on the front and sides. At its rear is a cliff dropping about fifty feet to the ocean.

  An engine to his left. A black-and-white car with “Newport Beach Police Department” on the side. It pulls in front of the Halls’. Tommy stops. Watches two policemen get out, buzz an intercom at the gate. When it opens they walk to the front door.

  Tommy jogs to the north wall. Leaps into it, a foot meeting the brick, and thrusts himself upward. His fingers latch onto the top.

  With the upper-body strength he accumulated from years of pull-ups in the firehouse then prison, he suspends himself. Holds his eyeline steady just above the wall, obscuring as much of his body as possible.

  The front door opens. A sixtyish man a head taller than the cops appears on the stoop. Stewart Hall. His mouth moves, Tommy too far to hear the words. A cop’s mouth moves. Then the other’s. Agitation in Stewart’s expression. He screams, loud enough for Tommy to make out, “I told you the same thing over the phone. She’s not here. I pay too many damn tax dollars to get harassed like this.” The door closes.

  The cops pace off the property. Their cruiser motors up the block, then turns off it. Tommy hoists his legs onto the wall, jumps down to the other side. In a crouch, he approaches the home, around him the sound of waves smashing into rocks.