A Murder of Crows

by David Rotenberg

  The assistant supervisor turned to the Secret Service guy and said, “I can’t do this alone. This is William, I need him to help me.”

  The Secret Service guy recognized Walter from days earlier when he had cleaned the church and this very guy was overseeing security.

  More good luck, Walter thought. But he corrected himself: This is more than good luck. He didn’t know the word “omen” except as the title of one of his favourite horror flicks, but he intrinsically understood and believed in the concept. And the security guy being the same one who saw him before was a sign. A sign that this was meant to be. Yes, he thought, this whole thing was meant to be.

  “Okay,” the Secret Service guy said.

  Walter entered and went directly to the basement, opened the far door as if to air out the place, then emptied the dirty mop water into one of the industrial sinks. He put aside the mop and slowly made his way back past another Secret Service guy and up the stairs to the main sanctuary.

  The supervisor’s assistant was making a final inspection of the place. Mustn’t be dirty for these rich kids’ folks. Mustn’t have these privileged folks put their butts into filth. Walter thought, They ought to see where I have to live.

  “Good, William,” the supervisor’s assistant said, taking off his rubber gloves. As he headed out the front door he said, “I’m trusting you to do a good job, William. Everything in its place, everything in perfect alignment.”

  “Walter.”

  “What?

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “And be sure you put things away properly.”

  Then he was gone.

  Walter looked around, then began to clean. The properness of the place drove him nuts. Everything had a perfect match across the way. Everything was perfectly twinned—actually squared. It was nuts, just nuts as far as Walter was concerned. He waited for the Secret Service guy he saw downstairs to come upstairs then he retreated to the basement and put away his cleaning equipment—carefully looked around to be sure that he was alone—then he undid the screws the Secret Service guys had used to fasten the panels leading to the ductwork of the church. They’d used screws that were supposed to be impossible to remove, but Walter was a janitor and had faced off with the smartest, often most secretive kids in the country. So he’d seen screws like this and had long ago figured out how to undo them. He did just that, then slid open the panel and crawled up into the ductwork. He went in feetfirst to allow him to slide the grating back into place and the screws back into their holes so that from the outside it would appear like nothing had changed.

  It was tight work and his hands began to sweat. The top two screws went into their sockets with little trouble, but the bottom left one almost made him cry it was so hard to get it into the hole. Finally he got it in and was about to work on the final one when he heard a Secret Service guy come back into the basement.

  Walter stopped moving and cupped the final screw in his hand so that it wouldn’t fall and clatter against the metal ductwork. Then he heard the Secret Service guy call out, “Did you see the janitor leave?”

  Walter slipped the screw into his breast pocket and pulled the zipper closed.

  Another voice called out, “I’ll check.”

  Walter cursed himself. He didn’t have to be here. To chance this. But he did. He needed to see what he had done. To be part of this—this “thing.” He wanted to claim it, but he knew better than to do that. But now no one could say that he was nothing. He wasn’t nothing. He was the one who blew up all those fucking privileged people—all of them.

  Through the grating he saw the Secret Service guy check the bucket and take the mop from the closet. Then he looked around him. The basement was pretty barren. Nowhere really to hide. Walter lost sight of him as he went to check the fire door at the back of the basement. Then he heard him call, “He must have gone out this way, the thing’s open.”

  Walter smiled to himself. I’d done that—smart—yeah, Walter’s smart.

  From up the stairs he heard the other Secret Service guy call, “Okay. Lock and seal it then come on up here. We’re doing a final sweep.”

  Walter heard the guy using an electric drill to seal the fire door shut, then saw him walk right under the ductwork and head up the stairs.

  Walter realised that he’d been holding his breath. He let it out in a single long exhalation. Then he turned in the tight space and began his climb upward. The screw in his pocket scraped against his chest as he moved. Forty-five minutes later he peered through an ornate grating and looked down on the church’s altar. He had a bird’s-eye view of the proceedings—of that which he had wrought.

  59

  AN ARRIVAL OF A LONELY MAN—T MINUS 1 DAY

  AS THE SMALL PLANE HE’D RENTED BANKED AND APPROACHED the single landing strip airport to the north of Dundas, New York, the grey-haired man sat back and turned on his laptop. He watched the video of Seth singing single notes up into the dome and then allowing the chords of music to cascade down on him.

  Clearly touching glory.

  60

  ANOTHER AGREEMENT OF TRADE—T MINUS 1 DAY

  THE OVERHEAD LIGHT IN DECKER’S ROOM SNAPPED ON AND HE went to turn toward the door, but the shackles stopped him.

  “You stay facing the wall, like any common criminal.” It was Harrison’s voice.

  Decker said nothing.

  “We’re prepared to trade, Mr. Roberts.” It was Yslan.

  “A wise—”

  “Shut up, you damned freak.” Harrison. Definitely Harrison, although they were precisely the same words his father had used when he was kid.

  “Hard for me to negotiate when I’m not allowed to—”

  “Your friend Eddie is in custody in a Junction police station.” Harrison again.

  Decker closed his eyes—squiggles of lines then forming up a perfect square. An untruth and then a truth. Decker assumed that the true part was that Eddie was in a police station—the lie that he was in custody. Canada was not so quick to act on requests from the likes of Leonard Harrison. Something like, “Arrest this guy as a material witness.” Yeah, they’d take him to a police station to question him, but it’s unlikely they’d hold him in custody. Besides, Eddie was surprisingly canny when it came to the law. His efforts to get his daughter back had led him to read many a legal textbook.

  “Not a truth,” Decker said to the wall. He wished his shackles would have allowed him to see the look on Harrison’s face, but they didn’t have any give in them at all.

  “We let your friend go if you tell us who received Professor Frost’s PROMPTOR e-mails.” Harrison.

  “We tell you where Seth is, then.” Yslan again. Decker was sorely tried, but he’d promised Eddie, and somehow he knew that there was a semblant order to events and Charendoff came before Seth.

  “No deal,” Decker said. “You know my terms. Either meet them or fuck off—I have some fine wall viewing that you’re interrupting.”

  A door slammed—he hoped Harrison. Then he felt the mattress sag a bit behind him. Yslan must have sat on the bed. A stab of pain in his wrists, then the sound of a key in a lock. Then his shackles loosened. He turned quickly on the bed and found himself face to face, eye to eye, lips to lips with Special Agent Yslan Hicks. And once again he was taken by the unusual colour of her translucent blue eyes, and the remarkable pallor of her skin.

  For a moment neither knew what to do, both acknowledging the peculiar connection between them. Then the moment was gone and Yslan stood. She handed him the keys and he quickly undid his shackles.

  Then she passed him a cell phone.

  “It’s a deal. Call Eddie.”

  Decker closed his eyes—two perfect interlocking squares floated from left to right across his retinal screen. Suddenly the cold was so intense that he winced. Then the metal thing in his hand and the slime between his fingers.

  “What?” Yslan demanded.

  “Nothing.” He held out the phone to her and said, “Cleanmyass at hotmail dot
com.”

  “That’s the guy’s e-mail address?”

  “Yeah. His name’s Walter Jones.”

  * * *

  Less than a half hour later Mr. T kicked in the door of Walter Jones’s basement apartment. Harrison rushed in, followed by Yslan and Decker.

  It was a clean if extremely modest place. On a Formica kitchen table they found an old desktop PC with an early edition of Windows that took more than a minute to boot up. Once it did, they found more than forty e-mails from Professor Frost’s PROMPTOR account that Walter had saved.

  Harrison quickly organised a search for Walter Jones. Photos of the suspect were e-mailed to every cop, FBI agent, Homeland Security officer and Secret Service officer who protected the president.

  In less than two hours the president was scheduled to speak in the church on Main Street, and the tension was palpable in the room. Harrison was issuing orders and Mr. T and Ted Knight were urging the forensic guys to hurry.

  It was as Decker heard Harrison say into his cell phone, “Security Code One lockdown—repeat, Security Code One lockdown,” that Yslan came out of the bathroom and said, “Better take a look.”

  The men followed her into the small bathroom. She pulled aside the streaked shower curtain to reveal what could only be called a shrine.

  A shrine to a girl named Marcia.

  Decker looked closely at the collection and knew it was not random. It had been carefully organised and displayed. But something was missing.

  Then Yslan shoved her way past him—a tendril of her perfume caught his attention and he turned back to the shrine.

  And there it was—a small space, now empty, that at one time had (Decker was pretty sure) been filled by a bottle containing Marcia Lavin’s perfume.

  * * *

  At the church the six Secret Service officers who oversaw security for the president scowled when they heard the order to execute a Security Code One lockdown. The eldest of the six looked around the church then up at the open grating for the ductwork high, high above the altar. “Ladders, guys. Big fucking ladders. And get me the portable welding kit. I’ll seal the ones in the church proper—you guys look after the basement and the vestry.”

  61

  A SCREAM OF VIOLAS—T MINUS 1 DAY

  IT WAS JUST FIVE MINUTES LATER WHEN VIOLA TRIPPING BEGAN to scream, and the marine guard immediately contacted Yslan.

  Ten minutes after that, the locked door to the windowless room was opened and Yslan Hicks stepped in.

  The tiny creature turned her cataract-blurred eyes toward the NSA special agent.

  “Viola?”

  The girl/woman screamed louder.

  “Viola, what’s wrong?”

  More screaming. Yslan didn’t have a clue what to do, then she found herself kneeling and holding out her arms to the tiny woman.

  Silence.

  Viola Tripping’s mouth opened wide but now no sound came from it. Her head moved slowly from left to right then canted, as if trying to bring the image of the NSA special agent into proper focus. Then she slowly walked forward and climbed onto Yslan Hicks’ lap, rested her head against Yslan’s chest, and heaved a sigh.

  Yslan never dealt with children, leaving that to those she thought had the motherhood gene. But she found herself slowly rocking Viola Tripping and then much to her surprise, singing a lullaby—the words to which she was surprised that she knew. “There was a young cowboy who lived on the range . . .”

  * * *

  Twenty-five minutes later Yslan eased the sleeping girl/woman from her lap and Viola Tripping’s eyes snapped open.

  “When?” It was more a demand for information than a question.

  “When what?” Yslan responded.

  “When’s the memorial?”

  For an instant Yslan wondered how she knew about the memorial service, then she quickly told her when the ceremony was going to be. Before she could ask if Viola wanted to attend, Viola said, “I must be there. I must—with him.”

  62

  AN OCEAN OF GRIEF—T MINUS 1 DAY

  GRIEF HUNG IN THE AIR OVER THE SMALL TOWN THAT MAY FIRST day, like a tarp thrown over all this.

  What remained of the church on Main Street was draped in black cloth.

  Security personnel were everywhere and made no attempt to hide their presence or their weapons.

  The austere, perfectly symmetrical interior of the Calvinist church was as closely guarded as any property on the planet. Every entrance had been sealed shut and every grate of every duct had been welded into place. Sniffer dogs had barked, but nothing had been found.

  Each seat on the hard wood pews was carefully marked with a name card. The seats for the grieving parents of the deceased students were up close to the altar, followed by seats set aside for the relatives of the dead faculty farther back.

  The day had dawned with a brisk north wind and despite the fact that it was the first day of May the chill intensified when the rain came.

  Harrison and Yslan were busy organizing the search for Walter Jones while trying to help the Secret Service agents with security responsibility for the president. So much so that no one kept the press back—and they had a field day.

  A massive memorial for young people, students, was by its nature a ghastly and heart-rending event—and one to which the American public insisted upon having full access. So the cameras were everywhere as the sorrowful parents and siblings of the deceased made their way into the church.

  Flashbulbs broke the gloom, and video cameras panned to get the best shots.

  But the one that captured the public imagination showed a tallish man holding hands with what looked like a dwarfed girl wearing wraparound sunglasses despite the rain as they waited in line to enter the church. In hours it appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the nation and led thousands of newscasts.

  As soon as everyone had taken their seats, the head of the Secret Service signalled the president, who looked up from his BlackBerry and gave the head of the CIA a thumbs-up.

  The doors of the church opened. A hush fell over the mourners.

  The president’s entrance to the church was done in silence with a solemnity that befitted the profound sorrow that filled the church like a thick fog.

  His athletic figure looked a little stooped, his features a bit haggard. His handsome wife walked at his side. They did not hold hands. Their two little girls did not attend.

  Everyone rose as they entered, and every Secret Service officer tensed. Movement of any kind was not a friend of security, and mass movement in a confined space was an outright danger.

  High above, Walter pressed his face hard against the grille and strained to get a look at the president.

  Far beneath him in the seventh row, the grey-haired man found himself unimpressed by either the president or his wife, although he liked the feeling that the grieving all around him produced in his chest.

  The president’s wife sat in the front pew as the president ascended the four steps to the raised dais alone. For a moment he glanced at the pulpit that projected out into the church like the massive prow of a sailing ship. An image of Orson Welles delivering the whaler’s sermon bloomed momentarily in his head.

  He signalled for the crowd to sit and they did.

  The president touched the tie he was wearing and allowed his eyes to roam upward.

  Walter grinned, although he wanted to whoop and cheer. The president of the United States was looking at him, and he was looking back—an equal. Equal to him. No better. Equal. He wished Marcia could see that.

  The president pulled his eyes away from the ceiling and looked at the assembled mourners.

  Viola Tripping squeezed Decker’s hand. “There’s an active death aura around him.”

  “Active?” Decker asked. But before Viola could respond, the president began. “This is a day unlike any other I can recall. It is a day completely devoid of joy.”

  Decker leaned back in the pew, exhaustion finally taking hold of him. His
eyes shut before he realised—and much to his surprise—no, shock—random lines entered his retinal screen. The president of the United States when he said, “It is a day completely devoid of joy” was not telling the truth.

  The service progressed. There were tears and the odd cry of anger, but on the whole the mourners were grateful for the president’s words of solace. Yslan and Harrison were even more grateful when the president finished and was whisked away to the safety of Air Force One.

  Once the door to the plane was shut he demanded, “So?”

  Leon Panetta, head of the CIA, said, “It’s confirmed. He’s there.”

  “So tomorrow?”

  “Yes, Mr. President, tomorrow.”

  A final hymn was sung and the congregation rose. The mourners began to leave the church down the centre aisle. Parents clung to each other; children bewildered by the sudden change in their lives cried openly, as much from fear as anything else.

  For a moment the line stopped, and right in front of Decker stood a late-middle-aged couple who wore their grief in the deep lines of their faces—faces that Decker was pretty sure belonged to the parents of Grover Cleveland Rabinowitz. The resemblance to the mother was startling.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. and Mrs. Rabinowitz.”

  The older man looked at Decker. “He was a good boy. A very good boy.”

  “I’m sure he was,” Decker responded.

  “He was our reason . . . ya know?”

  Decker didn’t know but was grateful that the line of mourners began to move again before Mr. Rabinowitz could clarify that Grover Cleveland was their very reason for living. From the man’s large strong hands Decker assumed he was a blue-collar worker—perhaps a warehouse worker—not a scientist like the son of whom he had clearly been so very proud.

  The last of the mourners finally passed and Decker and Viola Tripping stepped out into the aisle. Once he did, Decker saw Yslan standing to one side. He threw her a questioning glance and she mouthed the word “nothing.”