The Poet (1995) Page 6

  "I wanted to tell you that I'm going to write about Sean."

  She was silent for a long time and she didn't look at me. She got up and started emptying the dishwasher. I waited.

  "Do you have to?" she finally asked.

  "Yes . . . I think so."

  She said nothing.

  "I'm going to call the psychologist, Dorschner. I don't know if he'll talk to me, but now that Sean's gone I don't see why not. But, uh, he might call you for permission . . ."

  "Don't worry, Jack, I won't try to stop you."

  I nodded my thanks but I noted the edge to her words.

  "I was with the cops today and I went up to the lake."

  "I don't want to hear about it, Jack. If you have to write about it that's your choice. Do what you have to do. But my choice is that I don't want to hear about it. And if you do write about Sean, I won't read that, either. I have to do what I have to do."

  I nodded and said, "I understand. There is one thing I need to ask, though. Then I'll leave you out of it."

  "What do you mean, leave me out of it?" she asked angrily. "I wish I could be left out of it. But I'm in it. For the rest of my life I'm in it. You want to write about it? You think that's a way to get rid of it? What do I do, Jack?"

  I looked down at the floor. I wanted to go but didn't know how to exit. Her pain and anger radiated toward me like heat from a closed oven.

  "You want to know about that girl," she said in a low, calmer voice. "That's what all the detectives asked about."

  "Yes. Why did this one . . . ?"

  I didn't know how to phrase the question.

  "Why did it make him forget about everything good in his life? The answer is I don't know. I don't goddamn know."

  I could see anger and tears welling in her eyes again. It was as if her husband had deserted her for another woman.

  And here I was, as close a flesh and blood approximation of Sean as she would ever see now. No wonder she was venting her anger and pain at me.

  "Did he talk about the case at home?" I asked.

  "Not especially. He told me about cases from time to time. This one didn't seem that different except for what happened to her. He told me what the killer did to her. He told me how he had to look at her. After, I mean. I know it bothered him but a lot of things bothered him. A lot of cases. He didn't want anybody to get away. He always said that."

  "But this time he went to see that doctor."

  "He'd had dreams and I told him he should go. I made him go."

  "What were the dreams?"

  "That he was there. You know, when it happened to her. He dreamed he saw it but couldn't do anything to stop it."

  Her comment made me think of another death a long time ago. Sarah. Falling through the ice. I remembered the helpless feeling of watching and being unable to do anything. I looked at Riley.

  "You know why Sean went up there?"

  "No."

  "Was it because of Sarah?"

  "I said I don't know."

  "That was before we knew you. But that was where she died. An accident . . ."

  "I know, Jack. But I don't know what it had to do with anything. Not now."

  I didn't, either. It was one of many confusing thoughts but I couldn't let it go.

  Before heading back to Denver I drove over to the cemetery. I don't know what I was doing. It was dark and there had been two snows since the funeral. It took me fifteen minutes just to find the spot where Sean was in the ground. There was no stone yet. I found it by finding the one next to it. My sister's.

  On Sean's there were a couple of pots of frozen flowers and a plastic sign sticking out of the snow with his name on it. There were no flowers on Sarah's. I looked at Sean's spot for a while. It was a clear night and the moonlight was enough for me to see. My breath came out in clouds.

  "How come, Sean?" I asked out loud. "How come?" I realized what I was doing and looked around. I was the only one in the cemetery. The only one alive. I thought about what Riley had said about Sean not wanting anybody to get away. And I thought about how I didn't even care about such things, as long as it made a good thirty-inch story. How had we separated so completely? My brother and I. My twin. I didn't know. It just made me feel sad.

  Made me feel like maybe the wrong one was in the ground.

  I remembered what Wexler had said that first night when they came for me and told me about my brother. He talked about all the shit coming down the pipe finally being too much for Sean. I still didn't believe it. But I had to believe something. I thought of Riley and the pictures of Theresa Lofton. And I thought of my sister slipping through the ice. I believed then that the girl's murder had infected my brother with the most desperate kind of hopelessness. I believed he became haunted by that hopelessness and the crystal-blue eyes of the girl who had been cut in half. And since he didn't have his brother to turn to, he turned to his sister. He went to the lake that took her. And then he joined her.

  I walked out of the cemetery without looking back.

  7

  Gladden posted himself at a spot along the railing on the other side from where the woman took the tickets from the children. She couldn't see him. But once the great carousel began turning, he was able to study each child. Gladden pushed his fingers through his dyed blond hair and looked around. He was pretty sure everybody else regarded him as just another parent.

  The ride was starting again. The calliope was grinding out the strains of a song Gladden could not identify and the horses began their bobbing, counterclockwise turn. Gladden had never actually ridden on the carousel, though he had seen that many of the parents got on with their children. He thought that it might be too risky for him to do it.

  He noticed a girl of about five clinging desperately to one of the black stallions. She was leaning forward with her tiny arms wrapped around the candy-striped pole that came up through the painted horse's neck. One side of her little pink shorts had ridden up the inside of her thigh. Her skin was coffee brown. Gladden reached into his duffel and brought out the camera. He amped up the shutter speed to cut down on movement blurring and pointed the camera at the carousel. He focused and waited for the girl to come around again.

  It took him two revolutions of the carousel but he believed he got the shot and brought the camera back down. He looked around just to be sure he was cool and he noticed a man leaning on the railing about twenty feet to his right. The man hadn't been there before. And most alarming, he was wearing a sport coat and tie. The man was either a pervert or a policeman. Gladden decided he'd better leave.

  Out on the pier the sun was almost blinding. Gladden shoved the camera into the duffel and pulled his mirrored shades out. He decided to walk out further on the pier to where it was crowded. He could lose this guy if he had to. If he was actually being followed. He walked about halfway out, nice and steady, acting cool. Then he stopped along the railing and turned and leaned back against it as if he wanted to catch a few rays. He turned his face up toward the sun but his eyes, behind the mirrors, took in the area of the pier he had just come from.

  For a few moments there was nothing. He didn't see the man in the sport coat and tie. Then he saw him, jacket over the arm, sunglasses on, walking along the front of the arcade concession, slowly moving toward Gladden.

  "Fuck!" Gladden said out loud.

  A woman sitting on a nearby bench with a young boy looked at Gladden with baleful eyes when she and the boy heard the exclamation.

  "Sorry," Gladden said.

  He turned and looked around the rest of the pier. He had to think quickly. He knew cops usually worked in pairs while in the field. Where was the other one? It took him thirty seconds but he picked her out of the crowd. A woman about thirty yards behind the man in the tie. She was wearing long pants and a polo shirt. Not as formal as the man.

  She blended in, except for the two-way radio down at her side. Gladden could see that she was trying to hide it. As he watched, she turned so that her back was to him and bega
n talking into the two-way.

  She had just called for backup. Had to be. He had to stay cool but come up with a plan. The man in the tie was maybe twenty yards away. Gladden stepped away from the railing and started walking at a slightly faster pace toward the end of the pier. He did what the woman cop had done. He used his body as a shield and pulled the duffel bag around so that it was in front of him. He unzipped it and reached in and grabbed the camera. Without pulling it out, he turned it over until he found the CLEAR switch and erased the chip. There wasn't much on there. The girl on the carousel, a few kids at the public showers. No big loss.

  That done, he again proceeded down the pier. He took his cigarettes out of the bag and, using his body as a shield, turned around and huddled against the wind to light one. When he had the smoke lit, he looked up and saw the two cops were getting closer. He knew they thought they had him bottled. He was going to the dead end of the pier. The woman had caught up to the man and they were talking as they closed in. Probably deciding whether to wait for the backup, Gladden thought.

  Gladden quickly walked toward the bait shop and the pier offices. He knew the layout of the end of the pier well. On two occasions during the week he had followed children with their parents from the carousel to the end of the pier. He knew that on the other side of the bait shop were stairs that led to the observation deck on the roof.

  As he turned the corner of the shop out of sight of the cops, Gladden ran down the side to the back and then up the steps. He could now look down on the pier in front of the shop. The two cops were there below, talking again.

  Then the man followed Gladden's path and the woman stayed back. They weren't going to take a chance on letting him slip away. A question suddenly occurred to Gladden. How did they know? A cop in a suit just doesn't happen by the pier. The cops had gone there for a purpose. Him. But how did they know?

  He broke away from those thoughts to the situation at hand. He needed a diversion. The man would soon figure out he wasn't with the fishermen at the end of the pier and come up to the observation deck looking for him. He saw the trash can in the corner by the wooden railing. He ran to it and looked in. It was almost empty. He put the duffel bag down, lifted the trash can over his head and with a running start moved to the railing. He threw it out as far as he could, then watched it go over the heads of two fishermen below and down into the water. It made a large splash and he heard a young boy yell, "Hey!"

  "Man in the water!" Gladden yelled. "Man in the water!"

  He then grabbed the duffel bag and quickly moved back to the rear railing of the deck. He looked for the woman cop. She was still there below him but had clearly heard the splash and his yelling. A couple of children ran around the side of the bait shop to see what the yelling and excitement were about. After what seemed to be a physical hesitation, the woman followed the children around the corner of the building to the source of the splash and ensuing commotion. Gladden hooked the duffel over his shoulder and quickly climbed over the railing, lowered himself down and then dropped the final five feet. He started running down the pier toward land.

  About halfway to land Gladden saw the two beach cops on bikes. They wore shorts and blue polo shirts. Ridiculous. He'd watched them the day before, amused that they even considered themselves cops. Now he ran right toward them, waving his hands to make them stop.

  "Are you the backup?" he yelled when he got to them. "They're at the end of the pier. The perp's in the water. He jumped. They need your help and they need a boat. They sent me to get you."

  "Go!" one of the cops yelled to his partner.

  As one started pedaling away, the other pulled a two-way off his belt and started radioing for a lifeguard boat.

  Gladden waved his thanks for their speedy reaction and started walking away. After a few seconds he looked back and saw the second cop pedaling toward the end of the pier. Gladden started his run again.

  On the crest of the bridge from the beach up to Ocean Avenue

  , Gladden looked back and could see the commotion at the end of the pier. He lit another cigarette and took his sunglasses off. Cops are so stupid, he thought. They get what they deserve. He hurried up to the street surface, crossed Ocean and walked down to the Third Street Promenade, where he was sure he could lose himself in the crowds at the popular shopping and dining area. Fuck those cops, he thought. They had their one chance and blew it. That's all they get.

  On the promenade he walked down a corridor that led to several small fast-food restaurants. The excitement had left Gladden famished and he went into one of these places for a slice of pizza and a soda. As he waited for the girl to warm up the pizza in the oven, he thought of the girl on the carousel and wished he hadn't cleared the camera. But how could he know he'd so easily slip away?

  "I should have known," he said angrily out loud. Then he looked around to make sure the girl behind the counter hadn't noticed. He studied her for a moment and found her unattractive. She was too old. She could practically have children herself.

  As he watched, she used her fingers to gingerly pull the slice of pizza out of the oven and onto a paper plate. She licked her fingers afterward-she had burned them-and put Gladden's meal on the counter. He took it back to his table but didn't eat it. He didn't like other people touching his food.

  Gladden wondered how long he would have to wait until it was safe to go back down to the beach and get the car.

  Good thing it was in an overnight lot. Just in case. No matter what, they must not get to his car. If they got to his car, they would open the trunk and get his computer. If they got that, they would never let him go.

  The more he thought about the episode with the cops, the angrier he became. The carousel was now lost to him. He couldn't go back. At least not for a long time. He'd have to put out a message to the others on the network.

  He still couldn't figure out how it had happened. His mind bounced along the possibilities, even considering someone on the net, but then the ball stopped on the woman who took the tickets. She must have made the complaint. She was the only one who saw him each of the days. It was her.

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. In his mind he was at the carousel, approaching the ticket taker. He had his knife. He was going to teach her a lesson about minding her own business. She thought she could just He sensed someone's presence. Someone was looking at him.

  Gladden opened his eyes. The two cops from the pier were standing there. The man, drenched in sweat, raised his hand and signaled Gladden to stand up.

  "Get up, asshole."

  The two cops said nothing of value to Gladden on the way in. They had taken the duffel bag, searched him, handcuffed him and told him he was under arrest but they refused to say what for. They took his cigarettes and wallet. The camera was the only thing he cared about. Luckily, he hadn't brought his books with him this time.

  Gladden considered what was in the wallet. None of it mattered, he decided. The Alabama license identified him as Harold Brisbane. He had gotten it through the network, trading photos for IDs. He had another ID in the car and he'd kiss Harold Brisbane good-bye as soon as he got out of custody.

  They didn't get the keys to the car. They were hidden in the wheel well. Gladden had been prepared for the eventuality that he might be popped. He knew he had to keep the cops away from the car. He had learned from experience to take such precautions, to always plan for the worst case scenario. That was what Horace had taught him at Raiford. All those nights together.

  In the detective bureau of the Santa Monica Police Department, he was roughly but silently ushered into a small interview room. They sat him down on one of the gray steel chairs and took off one of the cuffs, which they then locked to an iron ring attached by a bolted clamp to the top center of the table. The detectives then walked out and he was left alone for more than an hour.

  On the wall he faced there was a mirrored window and Gladden knew he was in a viewing room. He just couldn't figure out for sure who
m they would have on the other side of the glass. He saw no way that he could have been tracked from Phoenix or Denver or anywhere else.

  At one point he thought he could hear voices from the other side of the glass. They were in there, watching him, looking at him, whispering. He closed his eyes and turned his chin down to his chest so they couldn't see his face. Then suddenly he raised his face with a leering, maniacal grin and yelled, "You'll be fucking sorry!"

  That ought to put a stutter in the mind of whoever the cops have in there, he thought. That fucking ticket taker, he thought again. He went back to his daydream of revenge against her.