Got Luck

by Michael Darling

  The initial report stated that Barry Mallondyke had died sometime between midnight and 4:00 in the morning. There were no defensive wounds visible. The cause of death had likely been the stab wound to the heart due to the location of the blood that had pooled under the body. The examiner would not confirm until the autopsy had been completed. The wound was approximately an inch and a half long. The lower edge of the wound was sharp and the cut was clean. The upper edge of the wound was torn and ragged. The examiner determined the victim had simply lain there and bled out. No sign of thrashing on the bed or fighting against the assailant. The blood had bubbled up and run down the sides of the victim’s chest and soaked the bed, but had not been disturbed.

  The secondary wound, in the abdomen, was longer. About seven inches. Almost no blood had come from this wound, indicating that the heart had ceased beating when several cuts had been made. While the wound to the heart had been violent, the wound in the stomach had been careful and methodical. Multiple cuts had been made to get through the various layers of skin, fat, and muscle. The examiner could not see any trauma to the organs visible in the abdominal cavity, including the stomach, liver, or intestines. Again, however, the examiner would confirm later. There were no other signs or scars indicating surgeries or previous wounds.

  I liked Sean’s work. His report was thorough and well-written, and he didn’t throw in a lot of extraneous detail.

  The report went on to describe the condition of the victim’s extremities and other observations made before the body was moved. I didn’t see anything else that would be useful. There were some photos, and I looked at the ones showing Barry’s face, his expression oddly serene. He looked like he was sleeping. Maybe dreaming about a nice dinner or walking on the beach with the young and beautiful Mrs. Mallondyke. The rest of the photos, showing the up-close details of the murder and mutilation, I could do without.

  Next, I skimmed through the witness statements and detective’s reports to see if any other information would jump out at me. Nothing did.

  I got to the autopsy report. C’mon Sean, my man. Gimme something I can use.

  There was a boatload of scientific description which went over my head. The gist of it all appeared to confirm the examiner’s original findings. Barry was murdered by a single knife wound into the heart. After bleeding out, his heart no longer functioning, his abdomen had been carefully cut open for reasons unknown. And Barry hadn’t seemed to mind. He’d smiled pleasantly while a knife of some kind had been plunged into his chest and his life bled away.

  I flipped through the pages, finding more photos. Suddenly, I had to stop.

  I was so shocked by what I saw, I pushed the murder book away from me like it had caught fire. For a few long seconds I froze in place.

  My mind didn’t want to process what I had seen. A nice, juicy clue had just walked up to the door of my brain and knocked, and my subconscious took a quick li’l peek through the spyhole and didn’t want to answer that particular door right now. Thanks anyway. Never mind what was standing out there. Not interested. No solicitations. Don’t bother the conscious part of the brain. Let it sleep.

  I forced myself to look again. The image burned its way into my mind and memory.

  A medical examiner starts with the outside and works inward. Eventually, a body is stripped and photographed to create a record of anything and everything that might be important. Got a nice little tattoo of Tweety Bird somewhere secret? Put there so only you and your closest companions will see it? Better add the medical examiner to the short list and be aware that if you die under questionable circumstances, everybody concerned with the investigation of your death will get the privilege of saying, “Hey there, Tweety! Did that bad ol’ Puddy Tat getcha?”

  Barry Mallondyke had a tattoo all right. But it was no Tweety Bird. I would have preferred a Tweety Bird.

  Between Barry Mallondyke’s supple shoulders, just below the nape of the neck, was a black circle with a design inside it. Like a Stain. Initially, my mind jumped to a terrifying conclusion: the tattoo had led to his death and I was next. The more closely I looked, however, the more I told myself to calm down. There was a design—but a much different design than the one I had seen on my forehead.

  I grabbed a pen and sketched the design on a paper napkin. Chief hadn’t said anything about taking sketches.

  I stuffed the napkin into my pocket and referred to the description of the tattoo in the examiner’s report.

  As I read, I felt a little better. Mallondyke’s tattoo was temporary like one of those you get wet and press against your skin or gets painted on. After the examiner had completed his report, he had washed the body so it could be re-dressed and turned over to the mortuary. The design came most of the way off although traces of the ink remained faintly visible.

  The design was also in a different place on him, of course. I had no idea what that might mean, but the more differences I could find, the better I would feel. The design was also very different from what I could remember about mine. The design on my forehead was an interlocking set of elements that filled the circle it was in. Mallondyke’s design was contained in a circle as well but was more like a triangle shape with odd curlicues at the corners and lots of white space.

  Those might’ve been gang signs except they were too complex and delicate. Gang signs were meant to be intimidating, not pretty. These intricate symbols had to be something else.

  I bought a fruit juice and cinnamon bun from the cafeteria—Aha! That’s why Erin smelled that way! Cinnamon bun!—and tried to settle down with the food. I took ten deep, agonizing breaths, per doctor’s orders. I forged ahead and hoped there wouldn’t be any more surprises.

  Two hours later, I felt I’d gotten everything I was going to get out of the murder book. All I really found out is that Barry Mallondyke had no enemies. He had been, by all accounts, a loving husband, responsible citizen, and friendly guy. He’d been vice-president for his family’s export business, Mallondyke South African Mercantile, since he graduated from college at the age of twenty-two. The company was almost seventy-five years old and owned, among other things, a diamond mine outside Johannesburg, South Africa. He had not been involved in any legal suits or bar fights, and he had no debts except for a mortgage and a couple of credit cards. His vehicles were leased by the company. He didn’t gamble. He drank socially when the occasion called for it but preferred a beer on the weekends. He had a million-dollar life insurance policy, but he made more than that in a year so he was worth more alive than dead.

  I stood up and stretched—carefully—still hurt—and took the murder book back to the Chief’s office. He was on the phone when I knocked, so I left the book on his desk.

  * * *

  A pair of workmen had almost finished installing the new window at my office. The landlord was on top of his game for once. Of course, this was an image thing. Having a broken window that could be seen all the way to the street was bad for a location’s reputation. Quick action was real estate self-preservation. The property had to look well-maintained to keep its value. If I had a problem with the plumbing though, it would be months before anything got done.

  I had decided to go by the office to see what was going on, and I was pleased to find everything was almost done. I could go to the house and bring my stuff back.

  Then I found the strangest thing. Sitting in the dead center of my office desk was a bullet casing for 7.62 mm rifle load.

  I asked the window installers if they had found the casing and put it there. The older of the two men shook his head and said it was there when they started the job this morning. Suspicion crept up the back of my neck. It was just too weird. It had to be the casing from the bullet that had found its way through my window and into my wall, didn’t it? I wanted to circle the desk and see if there was anything else I could see there. But I didn’t want to look like a goofball in front of the workmen. I knew I should
call the police and have them pick it up. Chain of evidence and all that. Impatience won. I still had the napkin in my pocket with the symbol on it so I used it to pick up the casing and deposited it in my shirt pocket.

  Qui-Gon caught me on the way out to my car.

  “Hey! You want lunch?” he asked.

  “Not now, thank you,” I replied. “I’ll be back later.”

  “Okay. You see the little boy?”

  That stopped me. “What little boy?”

  “Little boy wearing funny shirt. He came past this morning before I open up. He walk upstairs to your office. He never come down.”

  Pretty much anybody going to my office had to walk past Qui-Gon’s restaurant. And he had eyes like a hawk so he saw everything. Always looking for the next hungry customer.

  “How old was he?” I asked.

  “Dunno. Maybe eight. Maybe ten years-old.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Dunno. Just little boy. Funny shirt. He went upstairs. Later, guys bring window. Little boy still never come down.”

  “Did he look lost? Was he with anybody?”

  “No. Not lost. Walked straight up like he know where to go. All by himself.”

  I tried to think.

  I think I’ll move to a different location. Somewhere normal. I can’t imagine where that might be.

  “The shirt. You said it was funny. Like a cartoon shirt? With a funny drawing on it?”

  “No. Funny like old. Like nobody wear anymore. Like . . . Robin Hood!” Qui-Gon smiled at me. His little dark eyes sparkled from his wrinkled face like chips of obsidian set in a prune. He was proud to have come up with an explanation he thought I would understand.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll check it out. Thanks.”

  I was going to look like a goofball after all.

  The workmen ignored me and I ignored them as I made a tour of my office, discretely bending to look under things and sneaking peeks behind shelves and cabinets. They finally packed up their tools and left, and I explored the closets in peace.

  No little kid here. I sat at my desk to think.

  The small windows on the back of the office were usually cracked open for air. I didn’t think a kid could climb through one and safely drop the fifteen feet or so to the ground, but I was losing my grip on what was possible and what wasn’t. I told myself that the kid had likely gone down the same way he had come up and Qui-Gon simply hadn’t seen him go. I wanted to find the kid if at all possible since he was the most likely candidate for leaving the bullet casing on my desk and that meant he might have seen the shooter.

  I had no idea how my life had become so weird. It was about to get weirder. I was an hour away from ten-thousand dawns.

  * * *

  I went out to my car and sat for a few minutes, thinking. I thought so hard that my forehead started to itch.

  I realized what I needed right now was a feather.

  It was a short drive to the Alice Wainwright Park with its convenient access to the beach. After a stroll along the sand, I found a herring gull feather caught in some grass, which was perfect. I took it home.

  In the back of my mind, I wondered what had happened to Max and Sandretta. They weren’t here when I’d come home from the office, and I hadn’t seen them this morning either. What I really need though is a stone from the back yard. I quickly found one. A round, smooth, fist-sized hunk of sandstone, which was perfect. I took it into the house.

  I pushed the piano away from the middle of the room and it crunched over some of my CDs. I should have picked those up. Really though, a candle is what I need most. I had candles in the bedroom. They had never been lit, which was a little sad, but they were perfect. I brought one out to the great room along with a box of matches and put them on the floor.

  I should take that bullet casing over to Erin, so she could look it over. Maybe after I get a glass of water. I really needed a glass of water.

  I stood at the sink, filling a tumbler from the faucet, when I looked up and saw the ghost of my reflection in the window. It was light outside so my reflection was faint. There was no mistaking the design on my forehead though, glowing brightly blue. I could see it now, in complete detail. I don’t know why I wasn’t able to recall it before. It was elegant. Simple. Perfect.

  Salt. That’s what I really needed. I had a container of salt, which was perfect. In fact, I had three. When had I bought those? Probably planning a margarita party that never came to fruition. Ha! Fruition. I’m all about the fruition. Need a knife to cut fruit. Get a knife from the drawer.

  I looked at everything I had on the floor. Feather, stone, candle, matches, water, salt, knife. That was everything. Perfect.

  I think I’m coming down with a fever. My forehead felt incredibly hot.

  I got to work. I stood in the middle of my great room floor and started pouring salt in a line around myself. I drew a circle and then started filling it in. The pattern was vivid in my mind and I sketched it from memory. Interlocking lines with ancient power waiting. I used all three containers of salt. When I was finished, I stood back and looked at my creation.

  Perfect.

  It was crazy how satisfied I felt to get this done. To complete the design the way it needed to be. It was so right.

  I situated the other items at the compass points. Feather for Air in the North. Stone for Earth in the South. Water for Water to the West. Candle for Fire to the East. I lit the candle. Almost finished. I held the knife with the point against my thumb. I pressed. Blood welled up on the pad of my thumb. I walked around the circle and let seven drops of blood fall onto the salt to give it fuel. With each drop, the sky grew darker, and somewhere a breeze became a storm. I knelt in front of the circle and touched the knife to the salt.

  I knew exactly what to say.

  “Oscailte.”

  A thunderbolt of energy shot from my forehead and down my arm and traveled around both sides of the circle. The energy met itself on the other side with a clap that shook the house. The sound rolled across the floor in a wave and a pale, translucent column of blue light shot up from the floor to the ceiling.

  Some small part of me said to another small part of me, “That was nifty.”

  The circle and the design it held solidified while the spaces between the lines faded away. A rush of wind came up from the floor, and I took a deep breath of fragrant air from a faraway place. There were trees and grass and flowers below. The design became a silver gate with a hinge directly in front of me. The gate dropped away. A meadow lay below me, extending downward at an angle perpendicular to the floor. The silver gate lay on the grass at ninety degrees from where it had started.

  I stood in front of the open space and let myself fall.

  Chapter Five

  Realm of the Alder King

  I landed on the grass after pivoting through the hole. Gravity had altered its angle with me, and I found myself walking along a faint path. An honest-to-goodness shaft of moonlight lit the way like a spotlight on a hazy evening. I turned and looked behind me. The silver gate lay on the grass and the hole attached to it remained right where it had been conjured. I could see the ceiling of the great room through the hole.

  What . . . ?

  The Mama would have called this a “cluster monkey,” and I could picture her saying it with her ham-sized fists on her ample hips, shaking her head in dismay, making her pink hair curlers smack against the side of her head. I’d created a few cluster monkeys in my time with her, and it seemed I’d created one again, although I was at a sudden loss to know how I had done so.

  I followed the path away from the gate. It felt like the right thing to do. My forehead didn’t itch anymore.

  There was motion in the woods behind me, and a single, audible step on the ground. Without turning my head, I tried to see if there was someone moving through the trees
in my peripheral vision. Nothing that I could see.

  The path was clear. Wildflowers dotted the edges and spread off into the distance in tiny splashes of red and purple and blue and yellow. The air was cool and light and my lungs took it eagerly in.

  I heard a little girl’s laughter in the distance. Another voice hushed her. Someone was expected. Maybe me.

  The air behind me became suddenly denser and I turned in reflex. Toto had come back. My heart leapt in my chest and started playing marimba with my ribs. What could it want with me this time? It looked at me with those intelligent eyes, impassive, impossible to read.

  I took a few steps, walking backwards. Please don’t follow.

  Toto followed.

  I stopped because my knees decided a refresher course in walking would be in order right about now. Toto sat back on its haunches. Patient. Just a twitch of a pointed ear.

  The liondog was possibly not interested in chasing me down. I tried to put it out of my thoughts. For maybe three milliseconds. I urged myself sideways, keeping an eye on the liondog and an eye on the path.

  There was a stand of willow trees ahead, towering shoulder-to-shoulder. Their slender branches and leaves created a curtain of sorts. Behind them, shy lights danced. I reluctantly let Toto herd me in that direction.

  I went through the willow curtain and emerged into a moonlit glade.

  Dozens of creatures surrounded an open area in the center. Together, they created a ring of fantastic colors and shapes and sounds.

  Most of the beings there were human in appearance. Some had eyes that were overlarge or ears that tapered toward the back of their heads. Some had wings that were almost clear but caught the silver of the moon and a hundred other tiny, twinkling lights that were floating through the air.

  Others weren’t human at all. There was the whispering creature that was built like a centaur but with a feline body and a regal, hawk-like face. And the family of bears with serpent-scaled spines that scrambled up a tree, twitching their long hairless tails for balance. Voices, from guttural to flute-like, spoke and sang in hushed tones.