by Mark Davis
While she was still able, Emma went over the numbers. The only way to maintain even 50 percent ownership of the Cloverdale, she told her husband, was to flush out the college funds for the kids. They would also need to raid her 401(k), borrow against Daryl’s Army pension … and with all of that, it still might not be enough.
Daryl stood up from Emma’s bed, feeling nauseous.
He’d have to call Suzie before the day was over. There had to be something he could figure out for her. Someplace he could send her.
He walked out of the room and down the hallway, with its old green tile from the 1950’s and busy nurses wearing starched, white uniforms with the green logo of this hospital named for an obscure saint few Catholics could identify. He went to the restroom and washed the sleep from his eyes. Stepping back into the hallway, Daryl realized he couldn’t bring himself at that moment to go back to Emma.
It didn’t matter. She was still probably asleep. Or if not, she’d barely know him.
So Daryl went for a walk, past the waiting room filled with nervous families, past the bank of vending machines stuffed with levels of sugar that put many people in the hospital in the first place, past some administrative offices. He turned a corner and noticed a small room with a plaque that read, Chapel.
He went inside.
It was hardly a chapel. It was barely a room. More like a large closet with a few chairs arranged in front of a non-denominational altar with a stick-on stained glass window.
Wearily, he fell into a chair and rested his forehead on the metal rim of the chair in front of him.
Daryl started to weep and then willed himself to stop.
He prayed as he had never prayed before, begging God to save his Emma … or, if it was His will, to take her mercifully. He begged the Lord to let him keep the restaurant because Daryl knew that with Emma gone, work would be the anchor needed to keep his family intact, his children busy and stable in the disorientation of grief.
He prayed more intently than he had ever prayed before an aerial drop or in a combat zone during the quiet moments just before first call.
He prayed and begged and beseeched. He bargained and promised.
Daryl Parnell had done his part. Now it was up to God to do His.
___________
“We buried her three weeks later,” he said. “She didn’t suffer any more. Just went into a coma and faded away.”
The flesh around Daryl’s eyes looked bruised from rubbing and dabbing. His lower lip quivered like a hummingbird’s wings.
“I tried to live up to the example of Job,” he said. “Never once did I curse God. But I am not like Job. There is no reward God could give me now. Job got a new family, new wealth. I don’t want a new family. I want the one I had …
“Had … you see, six weeks later, after the Scotts closed on all of the Cloverdale and I got out with just my shirt, my sons … my sons … Richard and Sam …”
Daryl looked down at the floor, snorted, raked tears from the corners of his eyes with knuckles and looked back up, starring right into the camera, voice strangled.
“They went … on a weekend trip to the University of Georgia to check it out, just a trip for two brothers. I thought it was a good idea. They needed to get away from me and the grief, two brothers having fun.”
Involuntary twitches played across his face, at the corners of his lips and eyes, jerks of the flesh in his cheeks. His brown eyes were lustrous with pent-up tears. When he spoke again, Daryl’s voice had become a croak.
“They didn’t do anything wrong … no drinking or anything like that … It was a truck … at an intersection at the turnoff from eight-five to one twenty-nine … an eighteen-wheeler that plowed into them from the side … Oh God, oh Christ have mercy …”
He looked down and his head jerked as he stifled a cry. When Daryl looked up again, his eyes and cheeks glistened with tears and his voice was phlegmy.
“All I had left was Stacie … I tried with her … but everything that had happened had made it hard for us to talk to each other. She got into marijuana. She disappeared on me just after her sixteenth birthday. I finally tracked her down a year later … our little girl, working in a restaurant in Silver Lake, California, living with a drummer boyfriend, both of them covered in tattoos.
“I could have forced her to come home. But she was not glad to see me, as if I were somehow responsible for all that had happened to us. She was not going to come around. And I don’t think she will ever want to see me again.”
Daryl pulled a handkerchief and wiped his face. He blew his nose with a loud honk.
“Around that time, an old Army buddy turned me on to Freyja. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not naïve or stupid. I was once the darling of the VMI English department. I was a finalist for the Rhodes scholarship. I planned combat operations and led men into battle. So I’m no dummy. I do not believe in forest gods or ghosts on the Internet. But I do know literature well enough to appreciate Freyja’s sly metaphors. And Freyja gives me something precious … in her methods, in her treatments, I am able to unravel my pain just enough to clear my vision and let me see where I need to go and what I need to do next.”
Daryl cleared his throat.
“I need to move on, for I am done here. And I am done with the God of my fathers. But I am not done with all hope. If there is some sort of afterlife, or home that awaits us, I am ready to go there to be with Emma, to be with Richard and Sam. And if there isn’t? If there is just nothing? Well, I’m ready to go there, too.”
___________
Elizabeth left the office at 6 p.m., though the summer sun declared it to be three hours earlier.
She could have worked longer, but Ingrid’s shift was ending and the young woman needed to lock up the department’s computer center. As Elizabeth watched Ingrid turn the two locks and key the alarm, it occurred to her how futile all these locks and alarms would be in stopping Freyja, who could pass through any doors or systems like a mist.
“Daryl Parnell struck me as the saddest of the lot,” Ingrid said. “His testimony made me cry a bit.”
“Yes, of them all, he had a good reason for suicide.”
Ingrid’s right eyebrow went up, and with it, a thin, tiny ring of gold.
“There are good reasons for suicide, doctor?”
Elizabeth felt a blush, surprised at the words that had come out of her mouth.
“What I meant was, he was the only one of them who had suffered genuine loss and grief. Most of the others had suffered blows to their self-esteem. They were selfish.”
“I have never understood that,” Ingrid said. “How can suicide be selfish? I am perhaps selfish. I am certainly always in pursuit of selfish pleasures. But flinging myself off a high cliff has never struck me as particularly pleasurable.”
“That is because you are a very well-adjusted hedonist.”
Ingrid smiled, taking Elizabeth’s judgment of her as a compliment. The young woman’s smile was a bit crooked, even lewd.
“You should come with me tonight to some clubs I know,” Ingrid said.
“I’m too old for that.”
“You’re not that old,” Ingrid said, looking her up and down. “We could have fun, you and I.”
“Raincheck?”
___________
Walking back to the hotel, Elizabeth received a text.
>Lizzie, wuz up in the Big O?<
Elizabeth briefly considered a like response, then decided to elevate the conversation.
>Still helping with police work<
>Gonna catch F?<
>Will put that bitch in prison<
She instantly regretted the text, realizing that Freyja would see it. She decided to change the topic.
>How’s math going?<
>Got an 88 in final. Gonna pass it. Dang!<
>I’ll take that as a win<
>now in grave danger of grad on time. I want to stay in school forever!!!<
Elizabeth laughed.
>No, you really don’t<
>LOL, gotta go<
Elizabeth walked down Cort Adeler’s gate to make a right on Henrik Ibsens gate toward her hotel. She had been here long enough that Oslo was not only starting to become familiar, it was beginning to feel a bit like home.
A ringtone from Elizabeth’s phone announced a call from someone not on her call list. The phone display read “No Caller ID.” Elizabeth stopped, took a breath, answered and heard the womanly voice of Freyja, always composed, modulated and calm.
“Hello, Elizabeth, have I caught you at a good time?”
There was no telling if a Freyja call this close to her texting session was a coincidence. Elizabeth decided not to mention it to at least try to keep Max out of this mess.
“I always have time for you, dear goddess,” she said.
Freyja laughed.
“I am truly glad to hear it. I am calling to tell you how impressed I was by your easy mastery of indoor skydiving. As with the windsurfing, you seem to have a talent for maneuver. Perhaps you have the makings of quite a goddess yourself?”
“I am flattered.”
“I will send you more tickets, for morning runs before work.”
“Why?”
“It is a pleasure to watch you in motion.”
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
“Since you’ve come to Norway, you have done so much outside of your comfort zone. The parasail, the aeronautics at MegaJump, some interesting dalliances. You are learning to put aside your fear … the fear that has governed your life for too long. This progress is a powerful indicator of your far greater abilities. Are you ready to try something that can take you to the next level?”
“Depends on what it is. Does it involve flying in the air?”
“In a sense.”
“What is it then?”
“Elizabeth, the next step you need to take is the inward journey, a deepening of your understanding, a quickening of your courage. We are on for tomorrow night, 8:30 in the evening, correct?”
Elizabeth started to answer, but realized the call had ended.
When she arrived at her hotel, there was a plain manila envelope waiting for her at the front desk. She opened it in her room. Inside was a plastic bag containing a tiny white pill.
TWENTY-TWO
Lars called another PIG meeting, once again in the conference room of the Directorate of the Environment HQ. Elizabeth took a chair at one end of the long table, directly facing Lars who sat at the other end, framed by the room’s window overlooking Oslo in its late summer glory. One by one, the others arrived.
Lars looked around the conference table with a cheerful morning smile and called the meeting to order. The participants were by now familiar with each other and their joint routine. They gave reports from around the table as if they were in a board meeting, while Lieutenant Dahl took notes.
Harold Kober reported on recent developments on what remained of the Hommelvik Hammers. The war with the Night Wolves in Oslo had the predictable result of raining down law enforcement on both gangs. The Hammers and the Wolves had called a truce and both had gone deep underground. They were so dark, Ingrid failed to sniff a trace of the remnant Hammers and Freyja, not even on the dark web.
Charlie Bowie followed up by reading counselor notes on the release of the bodies of the American victims and their return to the United States for burial. He read his notes perfunctorily. For once, he made no wisecracks.
As they spoke, Elizabeth wondered how angry they would all be—Nasrin, Charlie and the rest—if they knew what was known only to herself, Lars, George and Ingrid, that Elizabeth had begun a regular conversation with Freyja.
It was now George’s turn to speak. He smiled and deferred to Elizabeth, who had been more involved in the case analyses. Surprised and a little flustered by George’s unexpectedly gentlemanly behavior, Elizabeth cleared her throat and offered her assessment of Daryl Parnell.
“Parnell is—was—a deeply religious man, a committed Christian,” Elizabeth said. “He was well educated and highly intelligent. The loss of his business, then of his family, destroyed his happiness and shattered his belief system. I believe it was this challenge to his beliefs more than the tragedy itself that left him so vulnerable to Freyja.”
“And Sandra Armstrong?” Lars asked.
“Sorry, I will finish that one today and all the rest this weekend,” Elizabeth said.
“Please get all the case studies done,” Lars said. “It is why you are here.”
“Will do,” she replied.
In meetings before the others, Lars was all business, with no hint of intimacy.
“About Sandra Armstrong,” Agent Norris said, “you should know that our Delaware field office is investigating Therapso and Armstrong’s activities, in conjunction with the FDA. Come by the embassy and I will let you read the case synopsis. If she weren’t dead, Armstrong would likely be facing a grand jury by now.”
Elizabeth turned to Nasrin. “Anything like that turn up on the background of Lionel Jacobson?”
Nasrin frowned, perplexed.
“No, should there be?”
“I continue to believe there’s something off about his testimonial. Jacobson’s account and personality do not add up to suicide.”
“There is one thing,” Nasrin said. “The Scotland Yard report on Lionel Jacobson mentioned something odd about the counter lawsuit for contract violations against him by Edward Lear and Judith Roberts. Their filing had snarky references and innuendo about Jacobson’s mentor, a deceased don at Cambridge, Seth something. When the Yard asked, their barristers said their clients directed them to add that in. Lear and Roberts on are on location in Australia, and we haven’t been able to catch up with them to ask what that’s about.”
“Jacobson’s the weirdest of the lot,” Bowie said. “We still don’t have a body on that one.”
“All we can say for sure is that one of his shoes was there,” Agent Norris said.
Lars closed the meeting by noting that Agent Norris and Detective Inspector Jones would soon be needing to get back to their duties in their home countries.
“We need a suspect, at least enough evidence to get this person offline,” Lars said. “I don’t like the idea of Freyja potentially staying open for business. Is that possible, Ingrid, that she could still be trolling for victims in ways we don’t know about?”
“It is very possible,” Ingrid said. “Her versatile use of mirror sites and word-of-mouth networks to recruit fresh victims could certainly mean that she is still active on sites we have yet to detect.”
As the meeting ended and they all stood, Bowie turned to Nasrin.
“How much longer will you grace us with your presence?” Bowie asked.
Nasrin’s smile was a bearing of teeth.
“Ten days, Charlie, tops … although I will miss your endearing half-witticisms.”
Bowie smiled back at her.
“And I will miss your wiles and charms.”
Elizabeth ignored them. She was surprised to feel a mild sting from Lars’ curt tone, even if it was wholly appropriate.
As they left the room, Lars stayed behind to talk with Lieutenant Dahl. Elizabeth left the room while Lars continued to play it cool, ignoring her. But then he would do that just to avoid gossip. As far as Elizabeth could tell, none of them suspected she and Lars were an item except, of course, for Bowie and his houndlike ability to sniff out personal secrets. As soon as Elizabeth got to the elevator with the others, her phone pinged with a text. She turned to the side to discreetly read it. It was from Lars.
>dinner tonight?<
For a moment, she thought about making a catty reply about having to do her case studies, but didn’t. Lars was right. She was behind. The bigger problem was that Elizabeth had other plans. Should she tell Lars about the pill?
>Gotta spend some quality time with
Max tonight on Skype. tomorrow night?<
Lars sent her a smiley face reply.
She still felt a little irritated for his reprimand in front of the others.
The elevator slid to a stop, a mere two stories down to the ground floor. When the doors opened, Elizabeth lingered behind to grab George by the arm.
Nasrin walked away briskly with the others.
George stayed behind with Elizabeth in the lobby. After a minute’s wait, they left the lobby and fell into lockstep on the sidewalk. As they walked, Elizabeth told George about the cellphone call and the pill.
“I do not approve of this, Elizabeth. It is dangerous.”
“You know I too have some experience here.”
It was true. As a grad student, Elizabeth had participated in an LSD study, a clinical experiment approved by the university and the DEA. Elizabeth had been given a mild dose and experienced her trip sitting on a comfortable couch in a safe room with a nurse ready to attend to her if the trip had turned unpleasant.
It hadn’t been at all unpleasant. To Elizabeth’s disappointment, it also hadn’t been powerful or profound. She had experienced some visual disturbances, saw random letters of the alphabet and words floating by in rainbow colors, felt slightly euphoric. That was it. But the point of the experiment was, after all, to study the effects of a mild dose.
Elizabeth remembered George’s paper: “Effects of Mild Treatments of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide on Ideation Among Survivors of Family Suicide.”
The paper had been an important milestone in George’s career, establishing some therapeutic value to psychedelics. Now it was Elizabeth’s turn to be both guinea pig and primary author of a new paper that would startle the community, though it could go in many different directions … Religious Ideation and Group Suicide? … The Role of DMT and Sound Wave Indoctrination?