Burning Man

Then the music stopped and I heard a familiar male voice say, “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. And then murder.”

I knew the voice; I was sure of that. But I couldn’t quite place it. I thought about my vision. The whole thing- from music, to the images, to the voice-had probably taken no more than fifteen seconds.

Normally I sleep after a fire dream, but not this time. I grabbed my laptop and called up a search engine. I typed in “denial” and was partway through typing “anger” when the suggested entry of “Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle Model” came up. I clicked on that and began reading. According to Kubler-Ross, those facing death went through five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In my vision there had been a sixth word: murder. That wasn’t on Kubler-Ross’s list.

It wasn’t as if I had divined the words on her list out of thin air. In college, one of my psych courses had the assigned reading of Kubler-Ross’s On Death and Dying. Still, I wasn’t sure where in the course of my investigation her grief cycle model fit in.

I thought about the disparate figures in my vision. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had been shooting a sky hook. Then I’d seen that actress from the Seinfeld series. It took me a moment to remember her name: Julia Louis-Dreyfus. My vision had also featured Olivia Newton-John. I think I’d conjured up a memory of her from Grease. Daniel Day-Lewis, who had acted in one of my favorite films, The Last of the Mohicans, had also been in my lineup.

Everyone I had envisioned, I realized, had a hyphenated name. Even the audio connection of my vision had hyphenated names: Rimsky-Korsakov and Kubler-Ross.

There was something there, something I knew I should be picking up on. There was a current going off in my mind, a humming. Sometimes Seth and his groups chant in his backyard, and the vigor of their sounds and vibrations always amazes me. Their voices combine into this primal force. When their chanting is in full throat, it almost feels as if I can reach out and touch a live wire.

Om…

My neck suddenly prickled. I connected the familiar voice that I’d heard reciting the Kubler-Ross grief cycle with a name.

Double om…

“You want to go for a drive?” I asked Sirius.

It was two thirty a.m., the wind was howling, and we had an hour’s drive ahead of us. My partner thought it was a great idea.

CHAPTER 21:

GONE WITH THE WIND

Two minutes after I confirmed Dave Miller’s address, the power went off. I didn’t know whether only Sherman Oaks was affected, or if most of LA County was also in the dark.

The so-called civilized world gets a lot scarier in the absence of light, especially on a night with the wind unleashed. In the darkness I debated my options. I had planned on calling Gump and Martinez, but with the power off I wasn’t able to call out with either my cell phone or house phone.

I moved toward the front of the house, hoping that if I opened the curtains, the moonlight would help me to see. After all the years I’d lived in my house, you would think I’d know my way around in the dark, but that wasn’t the case. I played blindman’s bluff, tapping my way over to the front window. The curtain pulling didn’t do much good; there was only a sliver moon and it provided minimal illumination. What I could see wasn’t encouraging: trees were being pushed to their limits, and over the wind I listened to their groaning and cracking.

Waiting would be the smart thing to do-for light, for backup, for the proper paperwork-but I have never been good at either waiting or doing the smart thing.

I could still hear Dave Miller’s voice in my head talking about denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, and murder. After the fact, everything was beginning to make sense. Miller’s son had been on Jason Davis’s bully list, but as Danny Marxmiller and not Danny Miller. What had thrown us off was Danny’s last name, which I was now certain should have been hyphenated as Marx-Miller.

Dave Miller had killed the individual he thought was responsible for his son’s death. He had gotten his eye for an eye. Although Danny Marx-Miller had died from a drug overdose, his father must have learned there was more to that story. That’s why Miller had planted drugs on Klein. His son’s reputation had been sullied, and he wanted the same thing to happen to the young man he believed was his son’s murderer.

There was a lot of supposition and guesswork in my theory, and yet in my gut I knew I was right. My subconscious-my visions-backed me up.

“We can call Gump and Martinez from the road,” I told Sirius. “Between here and Temecula there will be plenty of cell towers still standing.”

Sirius followed me while I stumbled around the house and seemed to think it was a great game. I played too much of that game until I found a flashlight with working batteries. Under its illumination I dressed. Before leaving, I holstered my backup gun.

Almost ten million people live in Los Angeles County. Walking out into the darkness, it felt as if I was in one of those end-of-the-world movies. There was no sign of anyone. I could have been the last person on earth, except for the zombies that had to be lurking out there somewhere.

I was wearing a windbreaker, which only seemed to encourage the wind. The fabric whipped and snapped and made me feel like the Michelin Man. There was a lot of static electricity in the air; maybe that was why I could feel the hair rising on my arms. Or maybe I was just afraid of the Santa Ana condition. I sniffed the air. Faintly, I could detect the smell of something burning. It wasn’t nearby, but the fire was out there and on the move.

The right thing to do would have been to report to police headquarters. When the lights go out, the LAPD puts out a call for all the bodies it can muster. The brass would be worried about looting, or any appearance of lawlessness. It would want to send out as many squad cars as possible so as to give the appearance of a police presence. Tonight, though, they’d have to do that without me.

In the absence of streetlights, my neighborhood seemed to have mostly disappeared. I backed out of the driveway and began driving. My headlights, even on bright, didn’t make much headway against the darkness. The strong winds were stirring everything around, and the shifting reflections played out on my windshield, making me feel as if I was taking in a black-and-white movie at a drive-in.

I tuned in to KNX and was glad to hear the blackout hadn’t stopped it from broadcasting. A serious-sounding newscaster was talking about all the calamities affecting the Southland that had been caused by the Santa Ana winds.

“It’s a mess out there,” he said. “Power lines are down all over the county and fallen trees are causing numerous road closures. Firefighters are currently battling multiple brushfires that are raging in Whittier, Covina, and Brentwood. If you don’t have to be out on the road, you are advised to stay home.”

It was good advice, but I didn’t heed it.

The freeways were still open. Usually a parade of big rigs travels the Los Angeles arteries at night, but not this night. The trucks were sitting it out. In all my years of LA driving, I’d never seen the highways so deserted. That should have made driving easy, except for the wind. I was driving like a drunk, unable to navigate a straight line. The wind kept blowing my sedan from one lane to another. The gusting increased as I traveled inland. I found myself leaning forward in my seat while keeping a tight grip on the wheel.

There were patches of darkness and light that showed those areas with power and those without. Whenever I had cell service, I tried calling Gump and Martinez, but the calls didn’t go through, which probably meant the power was out where they lived. I could have gone through the LAPD switchboard to get a message to them, but it wasn’t a good night to ask for messenger service. Judging by what KNX was telling me, all city services were being stretched to the max.

I tried not to think about the last time I’d braved the elements during a bad Santa Ana, but Ellis Haines kept invading my thoughts. Like it or not, our Santa Ana dance with death had intertwined our paths forever. I wanted out of our chain gang, but Haines wasn’t making that easy. The bastard had predicted this Santa Ana; he’d reveled