Dying Embers

by Robert E. Bailey

  She was six feet tall, had severely short hair, and wore a jail guard’s uniform. She flopped a large brown envelope—felt like a boat anchor—on my chest and loomed over me, taking the handcuff off my left wrist.

  “You’re out of here,” she said, and disconnected the cuffs from the bed rail. She hammered her heels out of the room, her trousers straining to contain a wide backside, and took the handcuffs with her.

  I found my property in the envelope—wallet, car keys, and pistol, with the spare magazines, including the one I dumped on the street. A check for eighty-two dollars and fourteen cents drawn on Kent County covered the cash I’d had on my person when they wheeled me into the emergency room.

  I was still holding the envelope, staring amazed at the pistol, when Gretta breezed in the door carrying a paper bag and turned on the lights. She wore a lime green pants-suit uniform, a white ribbon affixed to the lapel, and her hair done up in a tight bun with a white dove soaring at the end of her hair pin. Gretta dropped the bag onto the bed tray and bent over to examine the IV needle in my arm.

  “I’m not in the jail wing,” I said.

  “Haven’t been since you got the shot of Demerol and took the long nap,” she said, her dour face focused on her work. She zipped the tape off my arm. “Sheriff wouldn’t allow the off-duty city policemen to guard the door in the jail ward.” She pressed a wad of cotton in place with her thumb. “Guards filed a grievance with their union—said the city cops took their overtime. Sheriff said you didn’t warrant a guard.” She removed the needle. “Somebody from the city patrolmen’s association mentioned off-duty county shields not getting any deference in the city, and here you are. How many private rooms do you think they have in the jail ward? Hold that,” she said.

  I pressed the cotton in place with my fingers. “Hadn’t thought about it. I hope I don’t have to argue with my insurance company over the room.”

  “Somebody decided to pay, or you wouldn’t be here,” she said. She cut off a piece of tape and strapped the cotton ball to my arm.

  Gretta stashed the tape and scissors in the pocket of her uniform and picked the chart from the end of my bed. She made some entries and scowled. “You haven’t had a bowel movement.”

  “I was just leaving.”

  “Still,” she said, her face serious.

  “Give me your number, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Gretta corralled her smile down to tight lips and a tilt of her head. “I have to take the chart to the desk. I’ll be back. You should get dressed.”

  My clothes were in the paper bag Gretta left on the bed tray. They’d been washed and folded. Holes burned in the shirt matched the red sores on my chest and stomach. Only one shoe and one sock. Just as well. My right foot was still airing out, the drained blister having left a flap of loose white skin.

  I limped into the bathroom and found a monster lurking in the mirror. A shiny metal brace pasted to his face underlined eyes camouflaged in shades of brown, blue, and green. Two black stitches zipped his lip together. His cheeks were a bramble of grizzled stubble.

  On the sink I found a toothbrush and tiny tube of toothpaste in a clear plastic wrapper. I brushed the monster’s teeth. It made him happy, but he still looked like shit.

  “You shouldn’t be walking on that foot without a bandage,” said Gretta as she came back in the room. She had me sit on the bed while she applied a gauze bandage—with a hard sole like a shoe—to my right foot.

  “Take these with you,” she said, and dropped a wad of the gauze shoes in the sack she’d used to bring my clothes. “Don’t be walking around until that burn heals.” She showed me a wad of gauze gloves. “Use these to change the dressing. Use them once and throw them away. If the dressing is dirty, change it. If it’s wet, change it. If you’re bored, change it. Until you see your doctor, keep that foot clean and dry, and don’t be picking at it, hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll help you put that brace back on.”

  “My shoulder’s bruised,” I told her. “The brace hurts.”

  “You shouldn’t be leaving the hospital,” she said. She helped me shrug into the brace like she hadn’t heard my complaint. “You have to stop at the nurses’ station to sign a release. I suppose it’s for the best. The guards left this morning.”

  Gretta walked to the door and pulled in a wheelchair. A fat, battered, brown wooden cane hung from the back rest. “The morning paper said you killed that man they found in the gravel pit,” she said, and pushed the chair up to the bed. “How do you live with that, Mr. Hardin?”

  “Gretta, I thank God for every sweet breath I draw.”

  “I’ll never understand men like you,” she said. “How can you talk about God?”

  “Are you a religious woman, Gretta?”

  “Yes,” she said, “and I try to serve God in his mercy.”

  “And you have been sweet and gentle with me,” I said. “And I thank you for that.” I rolled my eyes up to her face without raising my head, and waited for her to meet my gaze. “The man died the way he lived,” I told her. “He and his friends did their level best to kill me. But I’m not the man who lost a friend and left him to rot in a gravel pit.”

  “The cane was donated by the hospital volunteers,” she said. “Bring it back when you’re steady on your feet.”

  • • •

  My son, Ben, met me at the door as Gretta wheeled me out. He had his hair under a ball cap and stood with his arms folded over a black T-shirt emblazoned with a red “Nine Inch Nails.” Wendy’s old Cadillac sat parked in the drive with the passenger door standing open.

  “You look terrible,” he said.

  “That’s an improvement,” I said. “Yesterday, I looked like shit.” The sun warmed my face. The air, free of the antiseptic smell of the hospital, made my lungs feel light.

  Shoot-from-the-lip Ben, ever fast with a quip, said, “You don’t look good, Dad.” He pushed the chair up to the door of the Caddy. A tan envelope lay on the passenger seat. I put the cane on the floor of the back seat.

  “What’s that?”

  “Lady came by and left that while I was waiting for you to come down. Said her name was Matty. Said you’d know her.”

  A white label on the front had been addressed to a “Col. A. Hardin,” with my service number. I threw it on the dash, got out of the chair, and climbed into the car—Ben not quite sure if or how he should help.

  “It’s all right, son,” I told him. “All the parts work. I’m just a little banged up.”

  Ben pushed the door shut, walked around, and climbed into the driver’s seat. “So who was the blond lady?” He started the engine.

  “Matty Svenson from the FBI,” I said. “I was hoping for another exciting ride in the Camero.”

  “Danny had to take Mom down to Lansing today. Ma said it would be easier for you to get in and out of this one. Why’s an FBI lady giving you military orders?”

  I opened the envelope. It contained two sets of orders, one ordering me from the Retired Reserve to the Individual Ready Reserve, the second assigning me to Annual Active Duty Training as a Liaison Officer with “Law Enforcement Agencies.” The third item, a white card: DA Form 2818, a concealed weapons permit—listed a civilian weapon, mine. The signatures were grand, in black ink, and illegible. I had the distinct impression that if I blew on this stuff twice, the envelope and its contents would burst into flame.

  “I’m going to do some military liaison work with the civil authorities while I’m off my feed,” I said. “What’s the grand attraction in Lansing?”

  “The State Police want to revoke Mom’s detective license. You know, because of the stuff they found in your office. They came out and searched the house. Ma is hot. She’s meeting Pete Finney in Lansing.”

  “Jesus Christ!” I said, and smacked my hand on the dash. It hurt my shoulder. “What did they take out of the house?”

  Devilment washed over Ben’s face. “Just Danny’s Playboy magaz
ines, but they brought them back. Ma threw them out.” Serious again, he said, “They wanted to take the guns but Pete was there with some kind of writ so they couldn’t, and he didn’t let them go through Mom’s files, either. Cops had a big shit fit. They put some stick-on seals on the gun safe and Mom’s filing cabinet. Pete says they have to ‘show cause’ or something like that, down at the courthouse.”

  Ben pulled out on the street. I flipped down the visor, made like I was checking my face in the vanity mirror, and watched the street through the rear window. A black Chevrolet Blazer pulled out after us.

  “You guys are missing school,” I said. I flipped the sun visor up.

  “Danny’s on a three-day suspension. I’m going in after I drop you at the office.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Some guys after school said dumb stuff,” said Ben.

  “They said something so he got in a fight?”

  “Weren’t no fight, Dad. He just thumped ’em.”

  “Doesn’t sound like Daniel.”

  “They started pulling on his pants—said to show ’em how he posed for pictures.”

  “Good God.” I shook my head and it hurt my nose. “Daniel all right?”

  “Cut his knuckle on a guy’s braces. He had to get a stitch. The other guys—he just shined his shoes on their backsides.”

  “So how come Daniel’s suspended?”

  “’Zero Tolerance,’ Dad. If you get in a fight you get suspended.” Ben turned left onto Michigan Avenue.

  “That’s a crock. I’ll discuss it with the principal.”

  “Ma already chewed him out. You could hear it down the hall.”

  “At least you didn’t get in trouble.”

  “No,” said Ben. “I hit the social worker, but that was at the sheriff’s office. I guess they got more tolerance.”

  “What?”

  “After they searched the house we had to go down to the sheriff’s office. Some twinky social worker kept asking sick questions. He kept getting behind me, rubbing my shoulders and saying it was okay to tell him this sick stuff he kept making up.”

  “You should have just walked out—told the deputies the guy was touching you.”

  “I did,” said Ben. “They said I had to talk to him. Ma went in and told him to keep his hands to himself.”

  “And?”

  “He was all innocent. I told him not to touch me. So the next thing, he’s behind me saying sick stuff, and playing with my hair. That’s when I elbowed him.”

  “What happened?”

  “Deputies came in and picked him up. They said we could go home. Ma went to the desk and filed a complaint.”

  I closed my eyes but changed my mind about rubbing my forehead. I flipped down the visor.

  “Black Blazer went straight at the light,” said Ben.

  “Just take me to the house,” I said.

  “Ma said I had to take you to the office,” Ben said. “She sent a bag of clothes. It’s in the trunk. She said she’d call when she got back from Lansing.”

  I flipped up the visor.

  • • •

  At the office, I took the steps two at a time—the bag in one hand and the cane in the other—and stopped halfway up to wave at Ben. He wasn’t having any. I had to jog up the rest of the steps before he’d leave.

  In my absence someone had elongated the stairway down to the first floor. I took the stairs one at time leaning on the rail. At the bottom of the steps I leaned on the cane to get over to the office door.

  Marg sat at her desk, her hands folded on a clean desktop. She’d had her hair cut into a shag with bangs and wore a lilac blouse with a Russian collar over a blue pleated skirt. When she saw me, she closed her eyes.

  I flopped on the sofa across from her desk. “Hair’s nice,” I said. “Didn’t know you had ears.”

  She shifted her eyes to look at me without turning her head. “I didn’t expect you in.”

  “Things kind of slow?”

  “I’m waiting for a client to pick up his books.”

  “Plans?”

  “I’m working on my resume,” she said.

  “You still have one client,” I said. “One that appreciates your loyalty and thinks you do a damn fine job.”

  “State police were here this morning,” she said. “They took the license off the wall and left an envelope on your desk for for your pocket I.D.”

  “I’ll call Pete Finney,” I said.

  “Finney called to say he couldn’t represent you because he took the Lambert case.”

  “I’m not charged with anything. They gave me back my sidearm and threw me out of the hospital this morning.”

  “I wish Pete was here,” she said. Marg stared at the Ladin Associates sign painted on the window with a wistful face. Misty eyed, she said, “Pete, my husband.”

  “I knew who you meant,” I said. I gave her the envelope Matty had left me.

  Marg looked at the label and then at me. She pulled the orders out. “I never thought I’d be glad to see things like these again. They always meant we had to move and start over, with strangers in a new place.”

  “This time they mean we’re going to get to the bottom of this. And the smug bastard that took our license down is coming back to put it where he found it.”

  “Actually, he was pretty decent about it,” said Marg.

  “Too bad,” I said. I winked—it hurt. “That’s going to take all the fun out of it.”

  Marg smiled and shook her head. She put the orders back in the envelope. “Botch the job and they’ll claim they never heard of us.”

  “Comforting that some things don’t change,” I said.

  “Pete would make them put it in the frame and hang it up,” she said.

  I wrestled myself off the sofa and patted Marg’s desktop as I limped past on my way to my office. I’d be glad just to get the license back. Peter A. Ladin definitely would not have let them off that easy.

  I found my desk blotter pushed aside to reveal the graffiti carved in my desktop. The frame, the nail, and the wall hanger lay neatly lined up below the inscription. A business card paper-clipped to the envelope for my pocket ID read—Archer A. Flynt, Office of the State Attorney General. Maybe this was going to be more fun than I thought.

  The telephone had been rescued from the trash and placed back on my desk, not much worse for the wear. I pulled on the wall cord. It was stuck. I leaned over to look. A new wall plate had been installed and the cord connected. I picked up the handset and got a dial tone.

  “Marg? You had the telephone repaired?”

  “Was it broken?”

  “Really,” I said.

  “I didn’t expect you to be in,” she said.

  I sat, thinking about it, and decided that there was nothing to do but take it for a test run.

  Pete Finney was out or had told his secretary not to forward my telephone calls. She wouldn’t transfer me to his voice mail. Finally, she agreed to take a note—”Pete, I have been released without charges, A. Hardin.” She said, “Mr. Finney doesn’t always pick up his messages.”

  “You just put them in the trash?”

  “If he doesn’t pick them up.”

  “This concerns the Lambert case,” I said. “Pete would think this was important information—if he knew. But, of course he won’t. If you follow me? I have no real expectation that Peter Finney, Esquire, will ever be apprised of this note or its contents.”

  “What did you say your name was?”

  I gave her the message again, and made a mental note never to pay Pete’s tab late.

  Lorna Kemp breezed in wearing yellow shorts, a white shell, and a French braid in her blond hair. From my office door she stared at me, her mouth momentarily open before she said, “Oh, my God.”

  “Only hurts when I laugh.”

  “You shaved off your moustache,” she said.

  “Damn fine investigator,” I said. “Notice anything else?”

  She tilte
d her head to one side and then the other. “Nope.”

  “I’ve been getting some complaints lately.”

  “I think those sweats have had it,” said Lorna. “Maybe some cheap sunglasses—the wraparound kind, and a shave. What do you think?”

  “How about you give me the bag from the sofa, and about ten minutes. We need to have a powwow.”

  “Matty Svenson called me at my flat,” said Lorna. “She wouldn’t talk to me on the telephone. I had to meet her at a bench in Calder Plaza. I brought my stuff.” She turned to retrieve the bag from the sofa. In the front office I heard her say, “Sure, I’ll tell him.”

  I heard the front door fall shut, but not in time to look up into the monitor to see who it was. Lorna stepped in and dropped my paper bag on the wing-back chair. She thumbed over her shoulder and said, “Detective Shephart said for you to wait for him. He went down the hall.” She left and pulled the door shut behind her.

  My spare glasses were on top of the pile in the bag. I put them on. Pain. I pulled off my sweats and dropped them in the waste can along with the back brace. Wendy had sent jeans, a belt, and a knit shirt with a collar, but no socks. I guess she was in a hurry.

  I dropped the bag on the floor and sat on the wingback chair to navigate my burned foot into the jeans. Marg told someone they would have to wait a moment.

  The door exploded open and bounced off the wall. Leonard Jones, casual in a blue blazer and gray slacks, stormed in with a K-bar knife in his hand and cold certainty on his face.

  He said, “Tell me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

  18

  “BECAUSE I DIDN’T KILL YOUR SISTER,” I said. “And because you’re an operator. You don’t do things out of personal malice. And you don’t do things without adequate planning.”

  I bent down to pull up my trousers. Leonard stepped up and held the tip of the k-bar knife in the divot behind my jaw, under my ear.

  “What makes you think I haven’t planned this out?”

  “If you had, I’d already be dead,” I said. “You wouldn’t have a Walther pointed at the back of your head. And you’d know that a police detective was about to walk in the front door.”