“You look even worse than you did on Friday night. Since that time your bruising has truly blossomed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that shade of purple.”
“I am just a canvas for art.”
“You didn’t tell me what happened.”
I hadn’t wanted to, but now I did. I described the attack and my strange assailants and their mumbo jumbo, and how Sirius had saved my bacon.
“Right now that’s all I can tell you,” I said. “Another detective is working the case and is trying to track down my attackers based on their tattoos. It’s possible they’re not in any police database, though.”
“Do you think Ellis Haines sent them to attack you?”
“They seem to have bought into Haines’s gibberish and wanted to do something for their guru. I wouldn’t be surprised if Haines was somehow acquainted with them, but I don’t think he put out an order for a hit on me.”
“Manson might not have ordered the Tate-LaBianca murders, but even if he didn’t say the words, he was found to be guilty. It sounds as if Haines’s followers were trying to please him in much the same way. In a messianic situation there exists an environment of
“When they’re caught they can prove themselves worthy with a long stretch in the pen.”
“Is that imminent?”
“The tattoos were distinctive-symbols for end-of-the-world stuff. And Sirius did some serious chewing on one of them. We’ll get them, but I am not sure if it will be sooner or later.”
A sudden gust of wind shook the windowpanes and made me start. “Damn Santa Ana,” I said.
“There’s a big fire in the Angeles National Forest. The winds are making it impossible to fight.”
“I’d hate to be a firefighter. I’d hate to be told to go take on an inferno in seventy-mile-per-hour winds.”
“It’s not a job I’d want either, but neither would I want to do your work. You’ve had to confront two very difficult homicides this week. That has to have taken its toll.”
“They get their hooks in you,” I admitted. “I purposely skipped Rose’s autopsy. Unfortunately, I had to spend a lot more time with Paul Klein’s body. He is going to be my ghost for as long as the case goes unsolved, and probably for a long time after that. Seeing him nailed to the tree is a sight I’d just as soon never have seen. I can’t get the image of his body out of my head, even though for the sake of the case I need to.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need to get beyond his crucifixion. I need to see as the killer saw. I have to look at the staging that was done, and I have to understand the hate. When the killer staged Klein’s body, it was almost like he was saying, ‘Look, everyone, here’s a false prophet.’ Klein was crucified because the killer needed him exposed. I have to ignore the violence of the image to read the message there. The killer wanted to show what a bad guy Klein was.”
“You said Klein was a bully. Was he a terrible human being?”
“He was arrogant and full of himself, but it’s hard to imagine that he deserved to die like he did. That’s why I need to understand the killer’s hate. What makes someone hate with such virulence?”
“Hate is arguably the strongest of all the emotions. It is nourished in the darkness of the human soul. Hate is fueled by anger, whether it is rational or not.”
“The killer’s hate was personal.”
“If that’s the case, then there might have been pathology involved.”
“Meaning what?”
“The perversion of love is hate. One of Newton’s Laws of Motion is that for every reaction there is always an equal and opposite reaction.”
“There’s something to that, but I still can’t put my finger on it.”
“Did you ever hate anyone?”
“I hated myself.”
“And why was that?”
“I could have saved Jenny’s life. I could have insisted that she go see a doctor earlier than she did. I could have been less absorbed in my own work and seen how sick she was.”
“You blamed yourself for her death?”
“Sometimes I still do.”
“You punished yourself. I know that. Did you ever think about killing yourself?”
“I tried to do it indirectly.”
Seth nodded. He had been there and knew that I had. Sirius stirred and sat up, and then put his head in my lap. My guardian spirit wasn’t going to let me brood.
We sat in companionable silence. Outside, the wind was gusting and swirling. I did my best not to listen to its echoes. I reached the bottom of my glass and Seth went and got us both refills. When he came back, there was a fresh worm in his drink. We began talking about less weighty subjects, and our conversation and the drinks took the edge off of the night even while the Santa Ana winds howled.
Seth noticed my wince as he consumed another gooey maguey. “It’s just a worm,” he said.
“You remind me of a character from the original Dracula film with Bela Lugosi,” I said. “Ever see it?”
“I
Instead of telling him that Lugosi never uttered that line I said, “Anyway, this poor guy Renfield is bitten by Dracula, which causes him to lose his mind and get locked up in an insane asylum. And because he was bitten by a vampire, Renfield starts getting some strange cravings, so when he’s in the asylum he takes to eating creepy- crawlies.”
“And I’m supposed to be this Renfield?”
“If the insect fits,” I said. “One of the film’s classic scenes is when the guard at the asylum stops him from eating a fly and Renfield indignantly says, ‘Who wants to eat flies?’ And the guard says, ‘You do, you loony.’ Then Renfield tells him, ‘Not when I can get nice, fat spiders.’”
“You actually memorized that dialogue?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t, what with Renfield being your role model.”
“I wasn’t the one bitten by a vampire.”
I ignored the Ellis Haines reference. I didn’t want to talk about him anymore.
Outside the wind howled.
“It’s playing my song,” I whispered.
“What song is that?”
“It’s the song of the Scarecrow.”
“Scarecrow?” Seth asked.
“Dorothy’s Scarecrow,” I said. I tried to make light of my statement by attempting the Wicked Witch of the West’s cackle and saying, “How about a little fire, Scarecrow?”
Seth wasn’t sidetracked. “The Scarecrow was afraid of fire. Is that what you’re hearing-and fearing-with the Santa Ana winds?”
“You sound more like a shrink than a shaman.”
“The two disciplines are closer than you might think.”
“That’s nothing I’d brag about.”
“You haven’t answered the question.”
“I’ve already done my obligatory therapy, Dr. Freud.”
“And what did you get out of it?”
“I got exactly what I needed. A slew of mental health professionals agreed that I was fit to return to duty.”
“Did you lie to all of them?”
“I told them what they wanted to hear.”
“You haven’t told me what I want to hear. I know how you suffer. I’ve just been waiting for the time when you were ready to talk about it.”
Attempting sarcasm, I said, “And what is it that you think you know?”
“I know that you still burn.”
His words made me burn again-in shame-and in that instant any and all anesthesia from the alcohol
