Heirs of Cain

by Tom Wallace

  Moss opened the bathroom door and looked down at the body lying on the floor. It was Taylor, all right, and he was a goner. He was on his back, eyes open, head ringed by a ghastly scarlet halo. Moss knelt down and felt for a pulse. For an instant he thought he detected one, but there was no way. He’d seen plenty of dead men in Korea, and he wasn’t mistaking this. Taylor was history, done in by the bullet that had crashed into the side of his head.

  Moss stood, careful not to touch anything, and began looking around the bathroom for a gun. He couldn’t find one, and that bothered him. He had automatically leaped to the conclusion that this was a suicide. But how could there be a gunshot suicide without a gun? There couldn’t be, which meant it had to be something else. But what?

  Murder? No way. A murderer would have to come through the front gate, past him—and that damn sure didn’t happen.

  Of course, there was a second possibility: the murderer could be one of the residents living at Pinewood Estates. No, that‘s an even more ridiculous notion, Moss thought. The folks here may be old, wealthy, and somewhat cantankerous, but they aren‘t killers.

  Had to be a suicide, Moss finally concluded. Definitely. Okay, so where‘s the damn gun?

  As Moss turned and started to walk out, he heard a groan. Pivoting, he looked behind him and then down at the body on the floor. Several seconds passed before he realized Taylor wasn’t dead. He knelt down next to the wounded man, whose groaning had given way to a rattling sound deep in his chest.

  “Taylor, it’s me—Moss. You’re gonna be all right. You gotta hang on. Hear me? I’m going for help.”

  Moss tried to rise but felt a violent tug from Taylor. The grip was surprisingly strong for a man who was only seconds away from death.

  Moss drew close enough to feel Taylor’s breath on his face. Blood began to trickle from Taylor’s nostrils and the corner of his mouth. The groaning was now a hollow, gurgling sound.

  Death may not have arrived, but it hovered close by.

  “Fallen,” Taylor managed to whisper.

  “Don’t try to talk. I’m going for help.” Moss tried to stand, but Taylor again drew him closer.

  “Fallen angels,” Taylor said, his voice fading.

  “What’s that?”

  “Fallen angels,” Taylor repeated, this time sending the word angels into eternity on the winds of his final breath.

  All signs of imminent death vanished. The rattling and gurgling ceased; the eyes, fixed and dilated, stared straight into nothingness. The dark angel had descended. There was no mistaking it this time. Taylor was gone.

  Two uniformed police officers rushed into the room with weapons drawn. Close behind was a plainclothes detective. Moss looked at them and then stood. They needn’t hurry, he thought. Hurrying ain’t gonna do nobody any good. No one was going to be saved tonight.

  “Dead?” one of the officers asked, seemingly to no one in particular. He had to repeat the one-word question before Moss responded.

  “Afraid so.”

  “Who are you?” the detective asked, stepping between the two officers.

  “Arnie Moss. The night watchman.”

  “You find the body?”

  “No.”

  “Who did?”

  “One of the clowns downstairs.”

  The older of the two officers knelt beside the body, felt for a pulse, briefly examined the wound, and then looked up at the detective. “Gunshot. Pretty heavy duty, from the looks of it. Body’s still warm, too. Couldn’t have happened much more than an hour, hour and a half ago.”

  The detective’s eyes scanned the room. “Where’s the gun?”

  “Didn’t find one,” Moss answered.

  “Really? That’s interesting.” The detective motioned to the two officers. “Start a canvass of the neighborhood. Maybe somebody heard something. And when CSU gets here, make sure they go over this place with a fine-tooth comb. I mean, scour the place. You ever been printed, Moss?”

  “Yeah. When I was in the Army. Why?”

  “We’ll need to eliminate your prints from any others we might find.”

  “You sayin’ I’m a suspect?”

  “You and everyone else who wasn’t with me the past two hours.”

  Moss immediately disliked the detective. The smugness, the arrogance, the better-than-thou demeanor. Moss saw enough of that from the folks living at Pinewood Estates. Old farts with fat bank accounts, healthy stock portfolios, and overblown opinions of themselves. He tolerated it, barely, because he had to. It went with the job. But seeing the same attitude in this jerk detective almost made him sick to his stomach. There was no excuse for behaving in such a disrespectful way.

  The detective, whose name was Randy McIntosh, walked over to the bed and looked down at the small dark stain. He stood perfectly still for a moment, then abruptly started out the door, signaling for Moss to follow.

  Moss seethed inside with anger.

  “Which one of you found the body?” McIntosh asked before reaching the bottom of the steps.

  “I did.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Clyde Bennett.” The man paused, then looked at the other man and the sniffling woman. “That’s Landon Walker, and the lady is Loretta Young.” Again he paused, before adding, “Just like the movie star.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “She was before your time.”

  “Tell me about it,” McIntosh said, removing a notepad from his coat pocket. “Why are you folks here?”

  “Taylor is … was … a friend of ours from the old days,” Clyde Bennett said. “Sometimes the four of us got together and played cards. Gin rummy, you know? Penny a point. Nothing serious. That’s what we were going to do tonight.”

  “I take it you’re not from around here,” McIntosh asked.

  “New York. Syracuse. Not the City, which everyone assumes when you tell them you’re from New York. We come down to Pawleys Island three, four times a year. Have for more than twenty years. When we do, we always make it a point to see Taylor.”

  McIntosh looked at Moss. “You verify that?”

  “Yeah.” McIntosh’s question fired Moss’s anger. “What do you think? That I let strangers pass through the gate?”

  McIntosh glared at Moss for several hard seconds, then turned back toward Clyde Bennett. “How long since you found the body?”

  “What? Twenty, twenty-five minutes now? I don’t know exactly. As soon as I did, I called the guard shack. Mr. Moss was here almost before I hung up.”

  “Did you see a gun or weapon of any type?”

  Clyde Bennett looked puzzled. “No, sir. Come to think of it, I didn’t. But I have to confess I didn’t spend much time up there. When I saw Taylor on the floor, I ran straight down here and called Mr. Moss.”

  “How’d you get in?” McIntosh asked. “You have your own key?”

  “The door was unlocked. I called out several times, and when there was no answer, we figured Taylor was out by the pool and simply couldn’t hear us. When I saw he wasn’t out there, Landon suggested I check upstairs, that maybe he’d fallen asleep. I went up there. That’s when—”

  “He was dead when you found him, right?” McIntosh asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Moss interrupted. All eyes quickly shifted to him. “He was still alive when I got to him. Barely, but still alive.”

  McIntosh moved closer to Moss, who was leaning against a bookcase. “You’re positive of that?”

  “I’m positive. He tried to tell me something before he died.”

  “What?”

  “He muttered something about fallen angels.”

  “Fallen angels? You sure about that?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” hissed Moss through clenched teeth. “Fallen angels.”

  McIntosh wrote something in his notepad, then looked around at the other three. “Fallen angels mean anything to any of you?”

  McIntosh’s question was met with silence. Finall
y, after a few seconds, Clyde Bennett said, “Means nothing to me. How about you, Landon?”

  An ashen Landon Walker shook his head and looked down at the floor.

  “You said you’ve been coming down here”—McIntosh looked at his notes—”more than twenty years. How did you know Taylor?”

  “Through Loretta,” Clyde Bennett said. “She and Taylor went to high school together.”

  “In St. Louis,” Loretta Young whispered. “A long time ago.”

  “Landon and I first met Taylor right after he got back from his last tour in Vietnam,” Clyde Bennett said. “That was sometime in the early seventies.”

  “When was the last time you saw Taylor?” McIntosh asked.

  “About four months ago,” Clyde Bennett said. “That’s right, isn’t it, Landon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he know you would be here tonight?” McIntosh asked.

  “Oh, sure, I spoke with him last night,” Clyde Bennett said. “Just after eight. Told him to expect us sometime around five thirty or six.”

  “Anyone else know you were coming?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  McIntosh turned to Moss. “Anybody been here to see Taylor lately? Say, within the past week?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll need to speak with the three of you again tomorrow at headquarters,” McIntosh said. “Around ten. To take your statements and get fingerprints. That includes you, Moss. It would also be helpful if you folks could stick around these parts for a few days. That pose any problem?”

  “No, no problem at all,” Clyde Bennett answered. “We’ll do anything you ask of us.”

  McIntosh closed his notepad and crammed it into his coat pocket. He walked toward the door, stopping along the way to check his appearance in the oval mirror hanging on the wall. After deciding his hair needed combing, he continued toward the door.

  “Fallen angels.” Rhetorically, he asked, “What was the guy? Some kind of a damn poet?”

  Dark clouds were beginning to drift in from behind the fine arts building, a sure sign heavy rains were on the way. The area forecast had called for a pleasant, sunny weekend, with almost no humidity and temperatures in the mid-70s. However, the reality was proving to be something quite different. The clouds now heading for the campus looked like they were coming from the skies of hell. The folks analyzing the weather data really blew it this time around.

  So much for all that super radar, Dual Doppler nonsense.

  Michael Collins turned his chair toward the window and watched the rain begin to come down, slowly at first, then in windblown sheets. It never failed: Friday, only a few more papers to grade, a big weekend planned, then seemingly out of nowhere, a three-day deluge. As one colleague said, “When tennis or golf calls, rain falls.” It was God’s eleventh plague, sent to vex teachers. Collins was convinced that educators were the latest recipient’s of God’s wrath. Ramses only happened to be first.

  Collins picked up a blue exam book and began reading. The exam, which covered Eliot’s Four Quartets, wasn’t a final, but it did carry heavy weight. With finals less than two weeks away, the eight grad students in this seminar had undoubtedly put forth their best effort. Better to enter finals week with room for slippage than to have a mountain to climb. Collins used this bit of logic to lessen the disappointment of another dreary weekend. He’d stay inside and give the students his best effort rather than fight this downpour.

  He was well into an examination of Burnt Norton when Kate Marshall came into his office, walked up behind him, and kissed him on the cheek. She leaned over and kissed his lips.

  “Passion inside the hallowed halls of academia,” he remarked. “What would the chancellor say if he knew such hanky-panky was going on behind closed doors? He’s a Republican, you know. And Republicans aren’t big on pleasures of the flesh.”

  “He’d say, ‘Damn, Collins, you’re one lucky dude,’” Kate answered, laughing. “‘Where can I find someone as lovely, intelligent, sexy, and charming as Miz Marshall?’”

  “No, what he’d do is tell you to forget about tenure.”

  “Yeah, you got that right.” She kissed him again, more playfully this time. “I have a theory. Want to hear it?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not really,” she said, sitting on the edge of his desk.

  “Shoot.”

  “Well, I suspect if some of these stuffy, staid old professor types, our beloved chancellor included, would only get laid a little more often—say, once every two weeks instead of every six months—things would be a damn sight better around here. It would relieve all the unwanted pressure and stress that builds up. Make them all a little more pleasant, more agreeable.”

  “What you’re saying borders on treason,” Collins said. “And you know the penalty for treason.”

  “The penalty for horniness is far more severe.”

  She stood and straightened her skirt. Kate Marshall was medium height with dark hair, hazel eyes, and the figure of a Ford Agency model. Slender legs, nice breasts, killer lips. In male parlance, the total package. But what Collins liked most about her—and had from the first time he’d met her four years before—was her quick, agile mind, her fearlessness and her wonderful sense of humor. Kate Marshall could hang with anyone, male or female.

  And yet … there was a twenty-year age difference, which he saw as a problem. He’d brought it up on several occasions, hoping for a frank discussion, but she’d quickly dismissed it. Age, she said, simply wasn’t important. Not when it involved two slightly weathered adults. It was a viewpoint he didn’t entirely agree with.

  “Why are you still hanging around this late on a Friday?” he asked.

  “Same reason you are—grading papers.” She went to the door. “What about tonight? We still on?”

  “Can we make it a little later? Maybe nine? I’d really like to get most of these papers finished.”

  She nodded. “Oh, yes, dedicated educator. I will wait for you until the last A is awarded.”

  “But not past 9:30, right?”

  “Right. A girl has to set limits or she risks being labeled a pushover. And … I’m no pushover.” She started out, then turned back to him. “Oh, I almost forgot. There’s a gentleman here to see you. Says it’s extremely important. He was rather insistent about it, too. No, actually, he was downright rude.”

  “Have any idea who he is?”

  “No, but his name tag says Nichols.”

  “Name tag?”

  “Yeah, on his uniform.”

  “What kind of uniform?”

  “Army or Marines. I don’t know. Military.”

  “Wonder why some military guy wants to see me.”

  Kate smiled. “Maybe you flunked his beautiful little daughter.”

  “I never flunk the beautiful ones,” Collins said. “Oh, well, show him in.”

  He closed the exam book and laid it on top of the others. Too bad he couldn’t finish it now. Spillage from the keen mind of young Bradley R. Alexander III was just getting interesting, and now it had to be put on hold. What the hell, Collins reasoned, if it took old T.S. five years to write the Quartets, surely young B. R. Alexander’s promising interpretation could wait a few more minutes.

  Kate led the man into the office, but he quickly brushed past her and extended his right hand to Collins. He was stocky-going-on-pudgy, maybe five foot ten, and dressed in full military uniform (Army), complete with a multicolored jigsaw puzzle of commendations pinned to the front of his jacket. On his collar, a single star glistened.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Professor,” he said. “I’m General David Nichols.”

  Collins shook the general’s hand, then motioned for him to take a seat across from the desk. As Nichols found his way into the chair, Collins winked at Kate. “Nine, right?”

  Before she could answer, the general said, “And please see that we’re not disturbed.”

  Kate backed out of the office without a
cknowledging his command.

  Collins picked up a can of orange juice and took a sip, letting his eyes examine more closely the cluster of medals on the general’s jacket. At first glance they were impressive. But to someone familiar with such matters, there was nothing of real consequence, nothing of genuine merit, nothing that would distinguish the general as an exemplary soldier, like a Combat Infantryman’s Badge, Silver Star, or Purple Heart. This was dime store jewelry. Junk. Obligatory gifts for time wasted. Collins’s term for such commendations: chest candy.

  “What can I do for you, General?” he said. “Sign you up for one of my classes?”

  “Not today.”

  “We’re studying the Beat writers next term. Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs. Sure you’re not interested?”

  The general paused—a little too dramatically, Collins thought—while lighting his pipe. He sucked in a couple of times, exhaled a white circle of smoke, and smiled. “You don’t fit the image I had of you. But then, shadows can be deceptive, can’t they?”

  “Depends on the shadow.”

  “I hadn’t been in Nam more than a week when I first heard of you. I wasn’t infantry—just a clean-faced second lieutenant assigned to an ordnance and supply outfit in Qui Nhon. Fairly safe gig, all things considered. Primarily, I was responsible for making sure supplies made it to various parts of the country. And everywhere I went, your name was mentioned. Cain. Strange how the men always whispered your name. Like they were praying.”

  He leaned back, the pipe in his right hand.

  “It was all hush-hush, of course,” he continued. “The Phoenix Project, Armageddon, Silent Night. No one was supposed to have any knowledge of those ops. But you know the military grapevine. Things have a way of filtering down. Secrets, even top secrets, are seldom well kept. Especially ones that deal with a legend.”