by Mark Murphy
Malcolm ran to the spot in the bushes. He found boot-prints. There were a few cigarette butts, most of them old, some assorted gum wrappers and a few crushed soft drink cans. But there was nothing else—not a single sign that anyone had been there a mere minute or so before, much less a green-eyed killer who might or might not be posing as a fake cop.
A killer who seemed to know as much about Malcolm as Malcolm did, who could vanish in the blink of an eye, and whose depths of cruelty seemed as unfathomable as the inky depths of the Marianas Trench.
Malcolm glanced around the door once again, scanning for any sort of clue—a car pulling away, a suspicious pedestrian, anything.
He saw nothing.
As Malcolm walked into the hospital, a large black bird flew in through the automatic doors.
It was a raven—a huge one, its obsidian beak ajar, eyes alert and cruel.
"Shoo!" he said, flailing at it.
Malcolm stood at the hospital doorway and watched the bird fly off. It winged its way toward a cacophonous flock of crows that were jostling among the branches of a tight brace of beech trees next to the hospital's helipad. Squinting, he scanned the expanse of land before him. For a second—just a flash—he could have sworn he saw a tall, thin man in a broad-brimmed hat standing among those trees.
And just like that, the thin man was gone. Again.
12
As a boy, Malcolm had always taken live oaks for granted.
The southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) is the state tree of Georgia. They are massive things; their branches, draped with Spanish moss and studded with thousands of dark green leaves, hang in massive canopies that stretch over the roadways and form green tunnels throughout the coastal south. The trees are as ancient as Methuselah; it was once said that they are "a hundred years growing, a hundred years living, and a hundred years dying." Wood from these trees was used to build the USS Constitution (also called "Old Ironsides"), the legendary sailing ship made famous during the War of 1812.
Malcolm had built many a childhood fortress among the sprawling branches of live oaks. But it was only as an adult that he had come to appreciate their resilience, their beauty, and their perseverance in the face of fires, hurricanes, floods—and men.
As he drove home to Rose Dhu that evening, Malcolm looked at the regiment of thick-trunked live oaks that lined the roadway. Many of the trees had been growing there, immutable, since Sir Patrick Houstoun had built his home centuries before.
And Malcolm envied them.
He wanted to be a live oak, deeply rooted in the earth. He wanted to be impervious to everything. But he was not. His perfect life was falling down around his ears, uprooted by forces that he could not understand. He was haunted, vaguely ill, like something nasty was worming its way through his gut.
And he was worried.
When he made the turn by the shrimp boats near his home, Malcolm felt the gut-worm tighten its insidious grip.
"Sonofabitch," he whispered.
Ben Adams's Volvo was parked in front of his house.
He pulled the BMW into the garage and locked it down before going into the house.
Ben was leaning over the island in the kitchen, nursing a beer. Amy and Mimi were sitting there with him.
"Daddy!" Mimi said, hopping off of her barstool.
She threw her arms around Malcolm and hugged him tightly.
"She's growing up," Ben said, tipping his beer in Malcolm's direction. "Seems like she's gotten taller even since I last saw her."
"Uncle Ben brought me a present!" Mimi said, her eyes bright.
"Really? What is it?"
"Something practical," Ben said. "You know me. I'm not the sentimental type."
"It's mace!" Mimi said. "But it's in a thing that looks like lipstick. Uncle Ben says no one would ever know what it's really for. Only me."
"It's actually pepper spray," Ben said. "Technically, it's called 'O.C.,' for 'oleoresin capsicum.' Mace is like tear gas; pepper spray is more effective. These compressed dispensers are the latest thing. They look like cosmetic cases but hold a lot of the stuff."
Malcolm gave Amy a peck on the cheek.
"He got me one, too," Amy said.
"You buying these in bulk?" asked Malcolm.
"Nothing's too good for these ladies," Ben said.
"You here for a reason?" Malcolm asked.
"The tape? When we discussed it earlier . . ."
"I said I'd call," Ben said.
"You never did, so I just thought I'd come on out."
"I got tied up in a case. You should have called me."
"What—are we not friends anymore?"
"Is something wrong?" Amy asked.
"No, hon. Ben and I were talking about something and we apparently had a misunderstanding about how the situation was going to be handled. That's all."
Malcolm looked at Ben.
"Bring your beer. Let's walk outside," he said.
The two men walked down the shell path to the dock, which pushed out into the marsh like a wooden finger.
"You have the tape?" Ben asked.
"Why are you so hot on this thing?" Malcolm replied.
"I'm not. It's just . . . I'll have to admit, what you described to me sounded interesting."
"'Interesting' is not the term I'd use to describe it."
"It could help us I.D. this guy."
"It implicates me, Ben. The guy uses my name."
A clump of cattails and a few wiry wax myrtles were clustered around the dock's takeoff point. Malcolm and Ben walked past them, their footsteps hollow on the old wooden walkway. A snowy egret, standing on the dock's handrail, unfolded its wings and flapped lazily into the evening sky.
Ben sipped his beer.
"We can analyze the tape. We both know you didn't do it. We just need to find out who did," he said.
"It's not us who I'm worried about convincing."
Ben drained the rest of his beer and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, setting the bottle down on the railing.
"You remember when we used to fish in this river when we were kids? We both used to be so envious of the rich folks who had their own docks," Ben said.
"You set fire to old man Edlich's dock that time, remember? You called him a mean old S.O.B.," Malcolm said.
"He was a mean old S.O.B. He used to chase us off his land when we went there to pick peaches. You remember all of those trees?"
"I do."
"He had at least a dozen peach trees. No way he could eat all of those peaches. They'd just be rotting all over the ground. But God help us, we take just a few of his peaches and he's got that .410 out, blasting away at us with rock salt."
"That shit hurt."
"It did. Based on our being shot at, the dock fire was fair play, I thought. And I put the fire out, anyway. I don't know if he even had to make any repairs."
"He never knew it was us."
"How do you know that?" Ben asked.
"I took his gallbladder out a few years back, before he died. He'd have never come to me if he thought I was involved in that dock fire."
"How long has he been dead now?"
Malcolm threw a chunk of oyster shell at the beer bottle.
"Ten years or so," he said.
"Was he still mean when you took his gallbladder out?"
Malcolm grinned.
"Mean as hell," he said.
He picked up another oyster shell and wound up to throw it, then stopped.
"What's that you were drinking?"
"Amstel Light."
"Where'd you get it? Did you bring it with you?"
"Jeez, mal, I'm a cop. I'm not going to drive around with an open beer bottle in my car, and I don't just bring my own beer everywhere I go. Amy gave it to me at your place."
"We don't drink that. Never have."
"Well, somebody does. Or the beer fairy left you guys some. It was in the fridge, plain as day. Second shelf."
Malcolm grabbed the beer bottle.
"Let's go back in. I'll get you the tape."
Their footsteps crunched up the footpath. A vague organic scent—an intermingling of the mercaptan-laden aroma of decay and the clean, salty taste of salt water—drifted into their nostrils from the marsh.
"Ben?"
"Umm hmm."
"I haven't old Amy about the tape. And Mimi knows nothing about any of this. I want to keep it that way."
"You're not going to tell Amy about the tape?"
"I will at some point. But I just told her about all the other stuff last night. I thought that the tape might be a bit much at this point. Okay?"
"Okay."
"And Mimi doesn't need to have any doubts about her daddy. I'm betting that we are going to resolve this before anything comes of it. She's pretty innocent—won't even kill insects in the house."
"What does she do with them?" said Ben.
"She scoops them up in a cup and takes them outside, then lets them go."
"Even roaches?"
Malcolm nodded.
"Even roaches."
Ben shook his head.
"I'll smash those nasty little buggers on the wall with my shoe," he said.
When they went back inside, Malcolm put the beer bottle in the recycling bin and popped open the fridge. There was indeed a cluster of four amber-colored Amstel Light bottles sitting on the second shelf.
"See?" Ben said.
Malcolm took the answering machine tape out of his front pocket and gave it to Ben.
"You mean you've had this with you the whole time?" Ben asked.
Malcolm nodded.
"I just wanted to gauge your motives before I handed it over."
"You question my motives?" Ben asked.
"I don't. But you've got to understand how weird this all is for me. I'm not sure who I can trust anymore."
Ben turned and looked straight into Malcolm's eyes.
"Who pulled you out of the marsh when you got stuck with those wading boots on when we were ten?"
"You did."
"And who stood up to Tommy Wysocki in ninth grade when he was going to beat you up for spilling ink on his backpack?"
"You did."
"So you aren't sure you can trust me? After I got my ass kicked for you in ninth grade?"
"I do appreciate that. But I did pay you back," said Malcolm.
"How's that?"
"I tutored you in geometry. Senior year. You got a B in Mrs. Baker's class."
"I did indeed. That was definitely payback." Ben held his hand up, palm outstretched.
"Blood brothers?"
Malcolm smiled, and placed his palm against his friend's, interlacing their fingers.
"Blood brothers," he said.
13
The Thin Man haunted Malcolm's dreams.
The Thin Man stood in the edge of his consciousness, hat pulled low, eyes smoldering beneath its brim like neutron stars. His chest moved like a bellows, wheezing with each and every breath. Both thickly-muscled arms were extensively tattooed with strange symbols written in a forgotten tongue, a language spoken by a people long dead and half-forgotten. His hair was straight and black, his teeth too long, and his nose and chin too angular, like a razor's edge.
In his dreams, Malcolm could hear the Thin Man's voice.
His voice was many things. It was the whisper one used in a graveyard, sibilant and reptilian. It was the low, sonorous clang of a church bell sounding in an impenetrable fog. It was the clustered voices of the dead, scrabbling to be heard from the realm of the unknown.
Hecetv Ivste honvnwv pvpetv hvse, the Thin Man said.
Over and over.
Hecetv Ivste honvnwv pvpetv hvse.
Malcolm had no idea what it all meant.
Still, for some reason, it did not frighten him. Not at all.
It was 3:08 AM when Malcolm's cell phone rang.
"Mal?"
"Yeah?"
"It's Ben. You need to get up."
"What?"
"Wake up and get dressed. Now."
The urgency in Ben's voice was clear. Malcolm threw off the covers, went into the bathroom and started grabbing clothes from his closet.
"What's going on?" Malcolm said.
"There's been another murder. I don't have time to explain, but they are coming to your home to get you any minute now. You have to leave."
"They?"
"Us. The cops."
"Ben, what the hell . . .?"
Malcolm put in his contacts and pulled on a t-shirt.
"Mal, look. I gave the cap the tape. He listened to it and wanted to come and arrest you right then, but I said no. Something's wrong with this, I said. Mal wouldn't just incriminate himself. He said something about you wanting to get caught and I said no way, but then some guy—listen, did you talk to a psychiatrist about dissociative identity disorder? A guy named Patel? On the side, not an official visit?"
Malcolm pulled on his jeans and zipped them up, then grabbed a jacket—the waterproof one, the one he used for fishing—and put it on.
"I did, but I . . ."
"Shit!"
"Did he call you?" said Malcolm.
"First, we got a postcard that was collaged together like one of those old-time ransom notes where they cut the letters out of magazine ads. It was signed Jack.' And we got one positive fingerprint I.D. from the card," said Ben.
"Mine," Mal said.
"Bingo. Then we got an anonymous tip that you had talked to a psychiatrist about that problem and they brought this Dr. Patel in for questioning. He tried to invoke doctor-patient confidentiality, but somehow they knew you were not actually a patient of his, and he spilled the beans about your whole conversation with him. The cap is now convinced you've got a split personality, and that part of you wants to get caught."
"Ben, this is ridi-- "
"Are you dressed yet?"
"Pretty much."
"Get out of the house. I'm telling you, they are coming for you right now."
"On the basis of your captain's supposition?"
"On the basis of another vivisection, the murder victim having been a former employee of yours who sued you for sexual harassment. And, Mal, they found your clothes—with your friggin' name in them— covered in the victim's blood and stuffed into a storm drain near the crime scene."
"What the hell is this? I haven't even been out of the house. You can ask Amy. And I've never been sued for sexual harassment by anyone. What's the victim's name? Can you tell me that?"
"Hell, I've broken every rule so far, so I might as well make it a clean sweep. Her name's Cyndy Delaney."
Mal was silent for a moment, then sighed.
"Ben, that woman sued all of us. Every male doctor in the practice. She claimed we harassed her by looking at her ass whenever she walked by. She's crazy as hell. That suit was eventually thrown out."
"Well, she's dead now—and you will be, too, if you stay there. So get out. And hurry—I could lose my job over this. I don't want this to be all for nothing. I need some time to find this guy and clear your name," said Ben.
Malcolm hung up, grabbed his wallet, his watch, and his keys, and then stopped.
Gotta tell Amy, he thought.
Malcolm turned on the bedside lamp and woke Amy up, shaking her gently by the shoulder.
"Ames?"
"Hmm?"
"Listen, hon, I've got to go."
Her eyes opened slowly.
"Are you on call?"
He shook his head.
"No. Listen, Ames, there's been another murder."
She sat up in bed.
"Anyone we know?"
Malcolm nodded.
"Sort of. It's Cyndy Delaney. The lawsuit girl."
"The 'everybody's looking at my butt' lawsuit?"
"That's the one. She's dead, and for some reason they suspect me. So I've got to leave."
"You're running from the police? But why? You haven't done anything!"
"It's a matter of perce
ption. The cops think I'm involved."
"But you've been here with me all night! I can vouch for you!"
"There's more to it than that. I'll have to explain it all later. But, Ames?"
"Yes?"
"Listen—there are going to be some people coming here who are going to say some awfully bad things about me, but none of it is true. Okay? I'm no killer. I'm a healer. You know that."
Tears welled up in Amy's eyes.
"You know that, right?" he asked.
"Yes, yes, I know that," she said, sniffling. "It's just . . . I don't understand all of this!"
Amy was crying now, her eyes red. She wiped them with her sleeve.
Malcolm knelt down, kissed her once—softly, on the lips—and stood up.
"I love you, Amy. You and Mimi—y'all are my world. Remember that."
"I love you, too, Mal," she said, tears streaming down her face.
Malcolm took one last look at his wife and left the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
The lights were off downstairs. Malcolm came down the stairwell carefully, trying not to make a sound.
Daisy was lying on the ground and saw him. Her tail began thumping on the heart pine floor.
"Ssh, girl," he said.
He was about to go into the garage and get in the car when he saw them.
There was a dark van parked across the street. Three black-clad SWAT team members were getting out. They were putting on body armor and night vision goggles.
Shit! Malcolm thought.
He knew that he could not drive out now. They'd nail him in a heartbeat—probably shoot him dead right in his own driveway. He would not let Mimi see that.
He'd have to leave by water. They were taking their time getting ready as they had no idea he knew they were coming, so he doubted they had stationed someone in back of the house yet. He had a tiny window of opportunity . . .
Malcolm turned the burglar alarm off and exited through the back door, on the river side of the house.
Sprinting along the beds and through the grass, he tried to avoid the shell path, which would have given his position away immediately. His breathing came up short. His heart was racing too fast. Malcolm silently cursed himself for not being in better shape.
He made it to the dock after what seemed like an eternity. He could see the end of it, could glimpse the river shimmering beyond it in the moonlight.