Blood of Angels

by Reed Arvin

  Something in his expression gives me pause. Good Lord. He means permanently. “You mean you’re not coming back?”

  Carl looks wistfully around. “This is it, Thomas. The last night.”

  “You can’t give up the Saucer, Carl. It’s un-American.”

  “And run into you, and Rayburn, and everybody else? Have you all look over at me with pity? No, thanks.”

  “Admiration, you mean.”

  He smiles. “I’m moving to Seanachie’s for the duration. Only Irish beer. Less complicated. In fact, I think I’ll start tonight.”

  “Want some company?”

  He shakes his head. “God, no. I’m not ready for that talk.”

  Right. The talk about how the hell this friendship is going to work, now that only one of us is left in the fight. “I’ll call you,” I say.

  “Sure.” He turns away, and I watch him enveloped by a crowd of backslappers. Carl soaks it all in; then he melts away down a hall, turning back at the doorway. He looks at the crowd a long moment, and he’s gone. The party continues at full speed without the guest of honor, people anxious to let off steam. I stay for twenty minutes or so, but my heart’s not in it. By the time there are rumblings about moving the party to another club, I slip silently away. I walk out of the party and into the warm air of a late August night.

  Seanachie’s is four blocks away and the opposite direction from my car. I head toward it anyway. I don’t want the night to end, because it means Carl is really gone. I get to the pub and look in the street-side window; Carl is there, at the bar, a drink before him. He’s alone, staring straight ahead. I don’t go inside, because I don’t have the right. Carl isn’t just saying good-bye to me and the staff; he’s saying good-bye to his life. Over the next few hours and beers he’s going to take leave of his knight’s roundtable, the place where his victories were celebrated and his defeats lamented. After tonight, he will have no reason to return.

  I circle back to the parking lot and head toward the truck. I put my hand on the truck, turn, and call out into the dark. “Come on out, dammit.” Silence. “Come on, I know you’re back there. I’m not in the mood to play any games.” There’s a rustle of movement, and a man steps out from behind a nearby car. “Who the hell are you, and where on earth did you learn to tail a person so badly?”

  The man walks out under a streetlight. “Officer Nielsen, sir,” he says. “The police academy on Lebanon Road.”

  I sigh. “Rayburn sent you, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Go home, Nielsen. I’m fine.”

  “I can’t actually do that, sir.”

  “So you propose to follow me all the way home to Franklin?”

  “Those are my orders, sir.”

  “And then?”

  “I work third shift, sir. I’ll be outside in the car until seven this morning.”

  I shake my head. Rayburn and his family. I unlock the truck, get in, and pull out toward home. The cop jogs to an unmarked Crown Vic and fires it up. I drive home, the officer fifty yards behind the entire way. I pull into the garage, and the officer stops at the end of the block and parks. I strip off my clothes, climb in bed, and fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow.

  THE DREAM BEGINS like before. It’s of Rebecca and water, and the beach in Florida. But this time, Jazz is with us, and we’re a family again. Jazz looks about four, and she’s riding on Bec’s shoulders. She’s laughing, her hair dripping with salt water. Bec splashes water up onto her, and she whoops and waves her arms in the sun. But this time, it’s not the sea that carries them away from me. Instead, Bec simply turns her back to the shore and walks toward the horizon. I scream my lungs out, but they keep getting smaller and smaller. I call out a final time, but the small point they have become vanishes into the glare of the water.

  Sometime deep in the night—when dreams are black nothingness—I hear what I think is the alarm, ringing harsh and close to my ear. It stops and starts again, and I realize it’s the phone. I reach groggily over and knock the receiver out of its cradle, fumbling for it in the dark. I pull the phone to my mouth and mumble, “Dennehy.”

  “It’s David.”

  I sit up; my bedside clock shows 4:05 a.m. “Yeah, I’m here. Talk to me.” There’s no answer; I hear noise in the background, like Rayburn is in a crowd.

  “It’s Carl. Something happened to him.”

  I jerk awake. “What about him?”

  “We don’t know what happened exactly.”

  “What are you talking about, David? What’s happened to Carl?”

  “He’s gone, Thomas. He’s dead.” He chokes back a sob. “Somebody stuck a knife into him. You got to get down here, Thomas.”

  My chest constricts. “Where are you?”

  “Broadway and Sixth, downtown. Paul Landmeyer has a small army down here, taking it apart, brick by brick.” He chokes back another sob. “It’s my fault. I put protection on Paul and you. I didn’t even think about Carl.”

  “Hang on, David. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  I pull on jeans and a shirt, push my feet into shoes, feeling a horrible buzzing in my ears. I go to the bathroom, thinking I’ll throw up. I don’t, but I’m unsteady for a while, my balance just out of reach. I fall back down onto the bed, holding my sides, feeling like I can’t breathe. I stand back up and force myself to walk toward the bedroom door. Halfway out of the bedroom, I stop. I walk to the nightstand, pull out the Rock Island .45, and hold it quietly in my hand. I take a breath and move toward the garage.

  I hit the garage door opener, and the cop car pulls up beside the driveway, his window down. “I heard on the radio. You rolling?”

  “Yeah.” I shove the gun into the glove box. I pull out and drive through empty streets, the cop tailing me. When I turn onto Broadway, I see a police barricade blocking the street.

  An officer walks over hurriedly, then recognizes me. “Sorry,” he says, giving way. “Go on in.”

  Powerful portable lights are set up on stands, their electrical lines trailing to a van. Yellow police tape secures a large area. Two men in white Tyvek suits are bent over at the waist, examining something on the sidewalk.

  Rayburn picks me out. “Jesus, Thomas,” he says, walking toward me. He opens his arms, and we embrace. “I’ve got twenty cops looking for Bridges.”

  “Where’s Carl, David?”

  “In the alley, around the corner. A patrol officer found him. His billfold and watch are missing.” I start toward the location, and Rayburn grabs my arm. “Not yet. Let Paul do his job.”

  “Then take me to the cop who found him.”

  Rayburn nods and leads me toward a patrolman about twenty yards away. “This is Glen Maxwell,” he says. “He found the body.”

  The officer nods. “I got a call about an open 911. You know, no voice on the other end.”

  “No voice?” I ask.

  “Just an open line.”

  “Any sound of struggle?”

  “No. The operator recognized the name on the caller ID and called her supervisor. They traced the cell tower, which put the call in a sixteen-block area downtown. They called me, and I searched the area until I found the vagrants.”

  “Four homeless people,” Rayburn says. “Maxwell found them arguing over Carl’s coat.”

  “They’re regulars, usually too drunk and too much trouble to be admitted to the mission,” Maxwell says. “I searched the coat for ID, and there wasn’t any. That’s when I felt the blood on the inside.”

  “Blood,” I repeat, feeling sick.

  “When I found the body in the alley, I figured the vagrants rolled him. But then I saw what happened…. Look, I wouldn’t trust those guys around a ten-dollar bill. But I don’t see them taking it to that level.”

  I look up warily. “What do you mean, ‘that level’?”

  “Serrated knife, right through the ribs. Punctured the heart.”

  Exactly how Bridges’s parole officer died. A wave of nausea
rolls through me. “I’m going to need a minute.” I walk away and retch into some shrubs planted around a streetlight. I support myself on the post, heart pounding, gasping for breath. It takes a good minute and a half to pull myself together. Rayburn and Maxwell walk over, letting me get my breath.

  “You OK?” Rayburn asks.

  “Go on. I want to hear everything.”

  Maxwell nods. “There wasn’t anything on the vagrants, so what I figure is, the murder was earlier. These four came on the body later and started arguing over the coat. But you can ask them yourself. They’re right over there.”

  I turn and see Paul Landmeyer talking to four people by the forensic van. The vagrants look jacked up, like they had big plans for the night and Carl’s death is a major inconvenience to them. Paul looks over, and our eyes meet. For once, his professional demeanor is rattled. He’s keeping himself together by a thread. I walk up to Paul and embrace him. “You OK?” I ask quietly.

  “No. I saw you talking to the officer. Did he tell you about the wound?”

  “Yeah. Just like Kavner’s.”

  Paul nods. “It’s Bridges.” He looks at the vagrants. “But if I’m going to have a shot at nailing him, I need these idiots to start cooperating.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “I need their clothes, mouth swabs, and hair samples. They’re taking it personally.”

  I start toward the group. “Give me five seconds…”

  “No, not that way. They need to give it voluntarily, so nothing gets contaminated in a struggle.”

  “You got something for them to put on?”

  “Orange jumpsuits from correctional.”

  “Give me one of them.” I pick up a jumpsuit and walk over to the little crowd. One of the men looks to be in charge, and I walk up to him, feeling a ringing in my ears. I start hoping he doesn’t do anything stupid, because I am one wrong gesture away from beating the shit out of him where he stands. I hold up the jumpsuit. “Get behind the van and take your clothes off,” I say. “Officers will create a blind for you. Once the clothes are off, you can put one of these on.”

  “Anybody tries to take my pants, he’s gonna get a boot up his ass,” the man in front of me says.

  “You don’t want to piss me off right now,” I say. My voice cracks a little, betraying the ragged edge on which I dance.

  “You can’t take a man’s pants,” another man snarls. “This is about dignity.”

  I take a deep breath, which buys me a few moments of rationality, but not more. “You have ten seconds,” I say. “If you don’t comply, I’m going to have each one of you booked for obstruction, resisting arrest, disturbing a crime scene, public drunkenness, failure to comply, and vagrancy. Then I’m going to put you on the shortlist of suspects for the murder of my best friend.”

  “We’re already suspects,” the first man says under his breath. But he heads toward the van, the others following.

  I turn back to Paul. “They’re going. Now tell me what you have so far.”

  Paul shakes his head. “Here’s the thing, Thomas. Even if we find this guy, I’m not sure we can make it stick.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “The alley has immense debris. We’ve got fecal material, urine. The footprints of hundreds of people. It’s not a crime scene; it’s a chemistry lab. But that’s not the worst of it.” He looks at me. “It’s the party, Thomas. Carl’s clothing is virtually opaque with debris. He came in contact with a couple of hundred people tonight. There was hugging, backslapping. I don’t think there’s a square inch of his clothing that doesn’t have something on it.”

  “How bad is it?”

  Paul stares back at the alley. “To have a shot? I’ll have to get DNA and clothing samples from every person at the party, same as the four on the street,” he says. “Then each one of them will have to be scientifically excluded. Then I can start.”

  “He went to Seanachie’s after,” I say. “Knowing Carl, he closed the place down.”

  Paul grimaces. “Which introduces the random factor. Unless they were regulars, they could be hard to track down.”

  “So how screwed are we?” I ask quietly.

  Paul looks at me, and I know it’s bad. “If I were going to plan the one scenario to get away with murder, I couldn’t do better than this. A decent defense lawyer would have a field day.” He shakes his head and walks off. For the next hour or more, Carl is going to be pored over by Paul’s forensic squad, reduced to nothing more than evidence, his humanity stripped. He will be measured, sampled, have swabs of chemicals placed on him, and generally treated like a piece of meat. I walk away from the scene, forcing myself to stay removed from a process I understand well enough to be repulsed by the thought of it being applied to someone I love.

  I turn away, feeling sick again. Two hundred people to exclude. It would take weeks, and that’s without the cross-contamination. It’s a nightmare. I look up and see headlights appear on the edge of the crime scene; predictably, media vans are arriving. It’s getting light, and within another hour cars will start streaming into downtown as the early birds arrive for work. But even though Paul’s team will be working the location for hours, I overhear on a nearby radio that Paul wants to get Carl’s body out sooner rather than later. A few minutes later, a gurney slowly rolls out of the alley toward the coroner’s van. By now a few photographers have unloaded their equipment, and Carl’s long trip along the crime scene to the van is lit up with the merciless glare of cameras. Carl is zippered in a body bag, the universal symbol of the victim. Two Tyvek-clad coroner’s officers load the body into the vehicle; a door slams, and the van pulls out, taking Carl to the horrors of the autopsy tools. The lights suddenly vanish, signaling that the show is over.

  Paul’s words come back to me. Even if we find this guy, I’m not sure we can make it stick. I walk to my truck and see the officer tailing me pop up, ready to follow. I’ve got to track Bridges on my own, and I’ll never get anything done with this guy on my hip. I go over to him. “Look, I’m headed to the office, and I’ll be there all morning. Just have the next shift guy pick me up there.”

  “That’s not my orders,” the officer says doubtfully.

  “There’s thirty cops here, Nielsen. I’m driving six blocks. Give yourself a break.”

  The officer looks around a second, then smiles. “Yeah. Listen, you’ll probably have a guy named Barrickman this morning.”

  “I’ll look for him.” I nod, get into my truck, and drive out. To the left is 222 West. I turn right and head for the railroad tracks. Charles Bridges might be wearing a suit now, but his customers aren’t. And one of them must know something.

  IT’S LESS THAN TEN BLOCKS to Union Station, which is completely still at this hour. I pull into the lot and drive to the metal stairs that lead to the railroad tracks. The hardest-core derelicts in Nashville are down there sleeping it off, and they are about to be rudely awakened. I park, push the Rock Island .45 into my belt behind my back, and descend into Nashville’s most dangerous square mile, looking for addicts.

  The sun is inching higher, splitting light across the railcars. I step over bottles and trash, threading my way toward the empty, decrepit cars. Ninety feet into the yard I pass two figures huddled together in sleeping bags, but the empty bottles tell me they’re not the target. Your drinking problem doesn’t interest me, pals. I’m looking for the ice addicts. The smell of urine is powerful, even in the outdoor space. A shadowed figure picks me up as I pass my first railcar, circling behind. I keep walking, ignoring him, knowing he’ll show up when he’s ready. Thirty yards farther on I hear him on the other side of a railroad car, making a hell of a racket as he goes. I reach behind my back and pull out the .45, not breaking stride. When I reach the end of the car he appears in front of me, holding a nasty-looking, homemade shiv. He’s blind drunk, which means he’s of no use to me. I shake my head and show him the gun; he stares a second, then vanishes back behind the railroad car, gone as quickly as h
e came. Alone again, I look in several open cars before I find a man lying on his side in one, asleep. I step up into the car, slide through the narrow opening, and stand over the figure, straddling him in the near darkness. There are no bottles, and a lighter is on the floor beside him. The man, who weighs almost nothing, sleeps on, oblivious, his autonomic system crashed after the previous night’s whack. I push him over onto his back with my foot. Nothing. I nudge his side, which gets little more than a “mnff.” I cock the hammer of the gun with a metallic click, reverberant in the railroad car; like magic, one eye slides upward, then the other. The man stares up at me, crust in his eyes, snot in his nose. I bend down until the gun is a foot away from his face. “Don’t move. You understand?” The man’s head moves gently up and down. “Good. Now tell me where you buy your ice.” The junkie’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t speak. I push the barrel of the gun into his right nostril, forcing it upward. “Three seconds. One. Two. Thr—”

  “Dude with a beard,” the man croaks. “Wears glasses.”

  “Tell me everything you know about him.”

  “Crystals. Good quality. Clear, no orange or brown.”

  “He makes his own?”

  “I don’t ask.”

  “What kind of quantities does he move?”

  “Quarters, mostly. More when the state checks come in.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I press the gun harder up his nose, until he winces. “Don’t fuck with me,” I growl. “I’m having a bad week.”

  “I don’t know, man. You think he invites me over for dinner?”

  “Is he ever with anybody?”

  “No. He works alone.”

  “You ever see a car?” His eyes shift left slightly. “One. Two. Thre—”

  “Fuck, man. Yeah. Once I seen him downtown. He drove by me, didn’t see me.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “Four-door. A little shitty. Ugly tan thing. Maybe seven or eight years old.”

  “What make?”

  “You know, shitty. I ain’t no car dealer, man.”