The Dark Root

by Mayor, Archer

  “Did the PD find out who did it?”

  “No. Benny busting loose actually did us a favor, ’cause that’s when this hit team made its mistakes. But there were no mistakes back then. The Vancouver Police couldn’t find a thing. There was a lot of blood, but that was all. They made the connection to the San Francisco shooting, but there was nothing they could follow up on. They wrote it off to inter-gang politics, and dropped the case into the permanent ‘open’ file.”

  “The name Truong never came up?” I asked.

  “Nope, nor any of the others I ran by them.”

  · · ·

  Ron Klesczewski lived in Guilford, south of Brattleboro, in a small development of modest, one-story homes, all built by the same contractor some ten years earlier. There were five buildings, placed symmetrically around a large circular drive, forming a layout typical of many crowded suburban sprawls. Except that here it was nestled in the middle of the Vermont woods, like the single lost piece of a jigsaw puzzle dropped from on high.

  Wendy Klesczewski, Ron’s young wife, opened the door. She stood staring at me, utterly surprised, despite my promise that I’d be by. “Lieutenant… I mean, Joe. Hi.”

  I was a little surprised myself. Wendy was clearly pregnant. “I didn’t know you were expecting. That’s wonderful.”

  She self-consciously patted her middle, her smile becoming a little more strained. “Five months along. I miscarried once before, so we didn’t want to… You know…”

  “Very smart,” I finished for her. “But everything’s going all right?”

  “Oh, yes—so far, so good.”

  There was that telltale skip in the conversation, when two uncomfortable people have just run out of small talk. We stared at one another for a couple of seconds before I finally asked, “How’s he doin’?”

  Her whole face yielded to gravity, her smile collapsing, the corners of her eyes giving in to minute stress lines that tugged toward her temples. The blush of a burgeoning mother was eclipsed by the anxiety of a worried wife. “I don’t really know,” she admitted and stood aside to let me enter. “He’s in the back.”

  The back, in their parlance, I knew from prior visits, was the one room in the house that defied the tiny neighborhood’s forced intimacy. Facing the rear, its one window looked out onto the woods and a small stretch of lawn reaching out to them.

  I found Ron sitting in a recliner, a beer in one hand, staring out that window. I took a seat on the couch beneath it, so he was forced to look at me.

  “Hi, Joe,” he said softly, a gentle smile on his face. “You want a beer?”

  I shook my head. “All set. Thanks.”

  He gave half a nod and his eyes strayed over my head to the darkening view. There were no lights on in the room, but enough of the day’s residue filtered in through the window to let me see his face clearly, and I saw the source of his wife’s concern.

  For a man of twenty-nine, Ron Klesczewski was looking threadbare and ancient. His face had thinned, his eyes were sunken, his very skin pulled as tight to his skull as that of an old pensioner. He obviously hadn’t washed or shaved in days.

  I didn’t tiptoe around it. “You look awful, Ron.”

  That brought his eyes back to mine. “I know.”

  “What’s been going on?”

  “I can’t sleep. I’ve taken sleeping pills, had half a case of this.” He gestured with the beer. “Nothing works. I can tell it’s driving Wendy crazy.”

  “You getting out at all? Seeing people?”

  “You mean a shrink?” he asked without hostility.

  “I didn’t, but aren’t you? I thought that’d been set up after the post-stress session.”

  He flipped his hand feebly. “I am, I am. It’s not doing much good, though.”

  “It’s only been three days. Maybe you’re expecting too much. You’ve got to surrender to what’s been bugging you—let things come out where you can take a look at them. It takes time.”

  His brow furrowed. “I know I’m screwed up. That’s not the problem.”

  “The problem’s that you can’t sleep?” I asked, purposefully incredulous.

  His irritation climbed a notch. “That’s what I just said. If I could get some rest, I could think this through.”

  “How ’bout the reverse? Letting it out so you can get some rest.”

  He shook his head angrily but stayed silent.

  “Cops are supposed to be superhuman,” I said. “Always calm, courteous, and available when the shit hits the fan. We begin to buy into that. But it makes us feel twice as bad when we stumble and show we’re human. We try too hard to live up to the fairy tale—to make the hero image real. But it’s not, Ron… You really think you can just brush off some kid opening up on you with a semi-automatic? Catch a little sleep and be good as new?”

  “You look okay.”

  “I’ve been through it before, in the service, as a cop, when Gail was raped. Even so, it might still hit me like a ton of bricks someday, and at just the wrong time. I’m not an example to follow. It’s better if you face it immediately.”

  His right hand came up and stroked his forehead, less to wipe it, or smooth an errant hair, than perhaps to check that it was still there. His voice, when he spoke, had lost its earlier brittle edge. “I just keep seeing him—his eyes. First when he was shooting at me, and then after I shot him. I keep running it through, again and again, trying to see what really happened. It’s driving me nuts. We’re about to have a baby, and I’m headed for the funny farm.”

  “You may look at the world differently after all this settles down. It will always be a watershed event in your life. But whatever happens, you’ll survive. I know that much about you.”

  He rested his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes for a moment, a long sigh escaping his lips. “God—I hope so.”

  I rose to my feet and walked toward the door, pausing by his side. “Just keep talking, bringing it out—remember how many people you have in your corner.”

  He reopened his eyes as I patted his shoulder. “Thanks, Joe.”

  Wendy met me in the front room, from where I knew she’d been listening, and silently escorted me to the door.

  “He’ll be fine,” I told her quietly. “Try not to worry too much.”

  Her eyes brimming with tears, she leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “Thank you for coming.”

  · · ·

  It had been one of my favorite meals—a taboo when Gail was at home—a Velveeta and jam and mayonnaise sandwich, followed by a can of fruit cocktail. The thick, sweet, cloying memory of it lingered in my throat as I roamed the house, like a tourist in a museum.

  The downtown apartment I’d lived in for almost twenty years had acquired the patina of an old bear’s den—comfortable, shabby, not too pristine, and very familiar.

  Not like this house at all.

  Lurking behind the furniture, barely covered by the coat of fresh paint and new carpeting, were the shadows and sounds of countless succeeding families, none of whom I’d known, dating back to when the core of the huge place had been built as a farmhouse in the early 1800s. These were not bachelor digs, nor were they truly ours yet. This was still so new to me that I felt like a guest at a dinner party, wandering in search of a bathroom.

  But there were a few familiar touchstones—items half lost among Gail’s more numerous things—that reminded me of where I’d been born and brought up, and of the small house I’d owned when I’d been married. When Brattleboro was an overgrown village, and the police department had consisted of a small handful of ex-farmers.

  Cancer had taken the marriage, and the house, and any hope of a family, and had encouraged me to enter a years-long emotional hibernation. Perhaps a different form of cancer—sometimes malignant, sometimes benign—had also transformed the erstwhile sleepy town of Brattleboro.

  Buying this house with Gail had evoked mixed emotions in me, a sense of both moving ahead and traveling back—directions
I felt were fraught with dimly perceived peril, and which became highlighted in her absence.

  It was a large house, many times remodeled, with blond oak floors, dark beams set against glimmering plaster walls, skylights and double-paned bay windows tastefully spread throughout. The kind of house I’d visited on only a few occasions.

  I went from room to room, remembering the two of us placing the furniture, choosing the colors of the paint, my watching how thoughtfully Gail made me feel a part of her decisions. A few of my possessions were logistically but self-consciously present in each one of the rooms. I still had a bachelor pad—two rooms upstairs, filled with my junk, sacrosanct. Gail had told me she’d never enter there uninvited and had requested the same limitations on her suite down the hall.

  I didn’t go upstairs, though. Fresh from my visit to the Klesczewskis, I was soaking up the air that we shared, searching for her presence.

  · · ·

  I lay on the bed much later, the phone in my hand, my eyes staring at a blank window full of night.

  “You sound lonely, Joe,” Gail said.

  “I am—and a little ticked off. I had a good life once, surrounded by my books and my music and my junk food. Life was balanced. I could go for walks, or stay at the office, or go visit you, if you were around. It was pretty good.”

  “You miss that?” she asked gently.

  “No. I wish I did. You ruined everything.”

  Her laughter filled my head.

  16

  TONY BRANDT BANGED HIS COFFEE MUG down on the counter with a curse and sucked on a scalded finger, checking his clothing for stains.

  “Now you know why people say the stuff’s a health hazard,” I told him as I poured myself a cup from the officers’ room urn.

  “I don’t have time to drink it anyway,” he muttered, now inspecting his finger. “Just force of habit.”

  “Got a date?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He glanced up at the wall clock. “Early-morning head-bashing session over at the high school. All this talk of gangs has got them worked up, just like we hoped. Shit—I’m running late.”

  He abandoned his mug on the counter and walked quickly toward his office. I took a side door into the hallway that separated the main part of the department from the detective squad across the way. For the second day in a row, the hall was empty of reporters. The last of the TV trucks had left the night before. As ironies would have it, the press had put us on the back burner just as our momentum was building.

  Dennis DeFlorio hailed me from the short flight of steps that led to the Municipal Building’s rear double doors and the parking lot beyond. He was carrying a bulging, battered briefcase in one hand, and the ubiquitous donut in the other.

  “Joe, where were you last night? I was looking for you.”

  “I went to visit Ron.”

  He walked down the hallway to where I was waiting, taking another bite along the way. “I got some good news about the gunman with the tattoo—the one they called Ut. And Dan Flynn called late—said his INS contact confirmed that Sonny and Truong are one and the same. No doubt about it.”

  Down the hall, near the rear steps, Tony Brandt burst from the department’s main entrance. He was wrestling into his jacket, holding a folder in the other hand. “See you later,” he called over his shoulder and promptly fell headlong down the stairs.

  Dennis and I broke into a run to see what was left of him.

  Brandt was curled up against the double doors, clutching his ankle. The floor was littered with the oversized confetti that had exploded from his folder. “Jesus H. Fucking Christ. I think I broke the goddamn thing.”

  We clattered down the steps to his side. I gently pried his hands away from his ankle, undid his shoelaces, and removed both the shoe and sock underneath. Dennis, looking a little hapless, began gathering the sheets of paper.

  “Can you wiggle your toes?” I asked. “Hurts like a bitch,” he said between clenched teeth, but the toes moved slightly.

  I felt around the ankle, which was beginning to feel warm and spongy. There were no hard bulges or any signs of a broken bone. “You may have broken it—but it could just be a bad sprain.”

  By this time, several people had collected at the top of the small stairwell. “Better call an ambulance,” I suggested.

  “No. Out of the question,” Brandt half yelled.

  Everyone stared at him. “I’ll go to the hospital, but in a car. I don’t want an ambulance.”

  “That’s crazy. They…”

  He grabbed my arm with an unmistakable ferocity. “No ambulance. They’ll turn this into a goddamn circus. I’m sick of being front-page news. Besides, what the hell can the ambulance do now? Slap some ice on it and make a lot of noise? Just put me in my car.”

  I glanced out the glass doors at the parking lot and the department’s four-wheel-drive Jeep station wagon, generally reserved for the shift patrol lieutenants. “All right. We’ll take you in the Jeep. You’ve got to keep that foot elevated and your car’s too cramped.”

  The crowd thickened measurably, and Tony capitulated. “Fine—whatever. Just get me out of here.”

  I yelled over my shoulder for someone to call the ER and let them know we were coming, and then I helped Dennis form a chair with our interlocked hands. We lifted Tony up and out the door, carrying him to the waiting Jeep with as much speed and gracefulness as possible.

  We’d just gotten him settled into the front, with the seat tilted back and his foot propped up on a folded jacket on the dashboard, when Harriet appeared by my side with a bagful of ice cubes. “There’s someone on the phone for you,” she added, “from the Montreal Police.”

  “Damn.” I’d forgotten I’d left a message last night for Jean-Paul Lacoste—Dan Flynn’s Montreal contact—asking him to call me as soon as he could.

  “Go ahead, Joe,” Tony told me, “I’m all set.”

  Dennis was already sliding in behind the steering wheel. “I’ll drive. Harriet, could you make sure they meet us with a wheelchair?”

  I half smiled at this unusual show of foresight. “All right. I’ll also have someone call the school and tell them not to expect you.”

  “Yeah, right,” Tony growled, half to himself. “They’ll be impressed how far I’ll go to avoid a meeting.”

  I laughed. “I’ll come see you later.”

  Dennis dropped the key as he was about to put it into the ignition. He was groping around near his feet when I told him, “You can fill me in on what you found out when you get back.”

  “Right—if I can ever get out of here,” he muttered irritably.

  I hurried back to the building, glancing over my shoulder at the door just as Dennis shouted, “Found it.”

  He leaned forward slightly to turn the ignition; Tony’s foot was propped up on the dash, looking comically out of place.

  What happened next froze me where I stood. A flash of angry red light arrowed up from under the steering wheel, enveloping Dennis’s still-passive face in a demonic flame. A sudden and terrifyingly large burst of white smoke then erupted from the Jeep, accompanied by the concussion of a short, deep-throated explosion. Just before it was enveloped in a curling white wreath, I saw Dennis’s head snap back, his mouth torn open by the shock of the impact. An instant later, I was pelted by a rain-like shower of debris landing all around me.

  My nose stinging with a sulfurous stench, I saw the hulk of the car emerge from the smoke, looking normal below the window sills, but like a smashed aquarium above—dominated by a menacing white cloud that hung in the air like a nuclear mushroom.

  I broke into a run, calling out, slipping on the glistening, still-spinning litter covering the asphalt. A glance at Dennis told me he was dead. Not just the blood, which painted the inside of the car, but the way his head was tilted back—flopped over the headrest.

  Tony, on the other hand, was still moving.

  I skidded around to the passenger side and tore open the door. Tony lay reclined on his se
at, writhing in pain, moaning softly. His clothes were burned and torn, covered with blood; he was littered with chunks of flesh, mostly from Dennis, whom I now saw was missing both legs. Gingerly, I leaned closer to Brandt. “Tony, Tony. Can you talk to me?”

  Blood was running from both his ears, which I knew was due to the compression of the blast. His eyes, when he opened them, made me catch my breath. They were bright crimson, red from the inside, as if something had exploded in his brain and his eyes had been made clear windows to the mayhem within.

  “Jesus Christ” was all I could say, before reaching out tentatively to see if somehow I could help.

  · · ·

  I stood by the window of the ER waiting room, looking out at the parking lot where we’d arrested Nguyen Van Hai the day before, knowing somehow that that event and the reason I was here now were directly connected. Throwing political correctness to the wind, along with some basic civil-rights tenets, I’d ordered Sammie to organize a canvass of every Asian we knew of or could find, even before Tyler had finished roping off the explosion site.

  I was having difficulty settling down, accepting that Dennis was dead and Tony badly hurt. I kept having to batten down spasms of anger that burst like firecrackers inside me, and to quell the impulse to lash out at something, or someone. I knew that now, possibly more than at any time in my career, the coolheadedness I preached about to others was going to be crucial—to the department, to the public’s perception of it, to the people we were paid to protect, even to the surviving members of Dennis DeFlorio’s family.

  Furthermore, I knew that although Billy Manierre had automatically become acting chief the moment that blast had gone off, he was in no position to afford me the protection from both press and politicians that Tony routinely had.

  Despite the clarity of these insights, however, the whole notion of grinding away on the case as I had been, nibbling at the edges when I knew it would finally extend beyond my jurisdictional reach, was anathema. In the same way that I wanted to kick a chair or punch a wall to blow off steam, I also wanted to be cast free of having to depend on disinterested, overworked cops, hundreds of miles away, to dig into details that mattered so little to them.