Killer Karma

him cringe and laugh at the same time.

Which ended abruptly as he crashed into the door.

Way to go, numbnuts. Closing his eyes, Cole decided maybe he was glad no one saw him.

Outside the men’s room he peered around at the concourse, considering what to do now. There must be an investigation into his death. Maybe seeing what they had in the way of evidence and suspects would help him learn what held him here. So he needed to visit Homicide.

As he started for the escalator, an uneasy thought struck him. Could he leave Embarcadero Center? Ghost stories always had them haunting specific places. A scene from some old movie played in his head…the ghosts of airmen who crashed in the African desert trying to walk away from their plane, only to find themselves circling back to it.

Downstairs, he approached the Sacramento Street exit with caution. To his relief, nothing blocked his way, nor pulled him back when he dodged across the street. He appeared free to go where he wanted.

Now it was just a question of reaching the Hall of Justice. Take the bus? He could ride free. Only a bus would have other passengers not only walking through him but standing or sitting in the same space he occupied. Cole grimaced. What about flying? He was a ghost, after all.

Except, he had no idea how to go about flying. Flap his arms? That sounded ridiculous, even with no one seeing him. He would walk. The Hall was only about two miles away.

After a few blocks, though, impatience to arrive turned the walk to a jog, then a lope. Zig-zagging through the South of Market, Cole noticed he maintained the pace without effort, and on reaching the Hall’s front steps, was astonished to realize he felt no trace of fatigue. He was ready to run another two miles. Or a marathon. So… no matter how many trips across town he might have to make, he could keep going? That was good to know.

Inside, Cole considered the elevator, and gave up that to walk on and pass through the stair door. Pushing buttons had to be as impossible as picking things up. Taking the steps two at a time, he raced up to the Investigation Bureau on the fourth floor. It felt bizarre not hearing his footsteps. The bare concrete walls and un- cased windows of the stairwell usually made every little sound echo.

He paused in mid-step. Usually? How often had he come up these stairs?

Continuing to climb, he decided it must have been often. This felt so familiar. When he reached it, the Bureau corridor and its walls hung with photographs of SFPD officers on the job felt familiar, too. Then as Cole passed Burglary’s door on the way to Homicide, he realized why. He was a detective. He had been one for almost seven years…assigned to Burglary…working the cases in the Mission District.

He stopped short, visualizing his desk inside…case folders stacked on it and the deep window sill beside it. So why was he killed? Burglars were not usually violent individuals. Still…

Cole closed his eyes and stepped through Burglary’s door. Past the counter, through the inner door into the main office, he headed for his desk. Stan Fontaine and Gail Harris sat at their desks, typing reports. He waved. “Hi, guys.”

Neither looked up.

No surprise there, but if only one would see him. When the identity of his killer and an explanation for this foreboding and urgency might be in one of his case folders, not picking things up sucked! Since association seemed to be triggering memory recovery, he had to hope that just seeing or touching the right folder-

A photograph by the telephone interrupted the thought. Four children, a brindle dog, and a woman with a Dolly Parton bustline and a kinky mane of bright red hair sitting on the steps of a Victorian. His family.

Guilt stabbed him. How could he remember he was a cop before remembering Sherrie and the kids? He and Sherrie had been married longer than he carried a badge. His family meant much more to him than the job. After growing up with his cop father an absentee dad, he worked hard at not inflicting that on his own kids. He made a point of being there to help them learn to ride bikes and shoot hoops, for birthdays, Travis’s school wrestling matches, and Renee’s music recitals. Especially, how could he remember that Aggieville brawl without remembering Sherrie Trask had been the nurse waking him every hour to take his blood pressure and shine a light in his eyes?

Cole ran his fingers across the photograph. God, he wanted to go home and see them. If only it were less urgent that he find out what brought him back.

Reverberation in him squeezed his chest and brought an icy wave of realization. Oh, shit. Sherrie and the kids were part of what brought him back. Whatever caused his guilt and foreboding also threatened them.

He bolted for the door.

3

Urgency pounded in Cole as he rushed out of the Hall and across the front terrace to the steps. How long would it take him to run to Noe Valley? Too long. Even a car would take longer than he liked. He wanted to be home now. If only he could fly.

In the middle of which thought he hit the newel post at the bottom of their hall stairs.

Cole gaped around him and through the archway into the livingroom. What happened? Was he really here? He ran his fingers along the crack in the cap of the newel post filled with wood putty, one of his first repairs when they moved in. From upstairs came furiously-paced violin music…“Summer”, from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Hearing the female half of their twins play brought her image to mind…all gangly arms and legs, seemingly taller every day, so intent on the music that Renee looked almost angry, and older than nearly fifteen. This was real, but…how had he gotten here?

A voice coming up the hall from the kitchen said, “Talk to me, Sherrie.”

Joanna Trask, Sherrie’s mother. He headed down the hall. Did her presence mean he died recently? She made sure to be here when Sherrie needed her. Though living in Oakland let her visit almost any time.

In the kitchen Joanna sat on a stool at the island — an older version of Sherrie but with plain, tame hair — watching Sherrie fill a plastic bucket at the sink.

Cole focused on Sherrie, too. Despite the weight of foreboding and urgency, seeing her brought the usual surge of warmth. Even after sixteen years, nothing welcomed him home like wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in the kinky mass of her hair…today tied back. The thought of her body against his and her breasts in his hands still had the power to arouse him.

Then she turned. The strain in her face kicked him in the gut.

Joanna frowned with concern. “I know that phone call upset you.”

Sherrie said nothing, just carried the bucket to the stove. He saw she wore rubber gloves, and instead of adding water to the big simmering soup pot, she opened the oven door and knelt to begin sponging out the white residue of oven cleaner.

A chill ran through Cole. Silent and scouring the kitchen? Something had seriously pissed her off. The same thing that caused his guilt?

Joanna continued, “What did Sergeant Leach say to you?”

Cole grimaced in dismay. Management Control was involved in his murder investigation? What the hell had he been doing? And of all the internal affairs officers that could be on his case, what bad karma picked Norman Leach? He doubted Leach had forgotten the fake bullet holes put on his new Corvette when they worked together in the Northern District…and maybe still brooded over the suspicion that Cole Dunavan and Kevin Rasgorshek were responsible.

His old partner’s name brought a mental dope slap. Damn! Razor was someone else he should have remembered right away. Since becoming partners on Patrol in the Northern District, they had been like brothers. All the time they spent running around together off duty resulted in endless ribbing and lewd comments when Sherrie and Razor’s second wife Lauren turned up pregnant at the same time and delivered Kyle and Holly within a week of each other. Razor could tell him what had been going on…if only there were a way to ask.

“Did the sergeant have something more to say about that woman?” Joanna asked.

Woman. Cole forgot Razor. What woman?