Robert Knightly: Bodies in Winter

But ‘among the better’ was not Olympic caliber, or even college scholarship material. When I emerged from high school with a diploma and a pair of empty pockets, I had to choose between work and the streets. My answer, guided by Conrad, was the United States Army.

The army was good for Harry Corbin, especially the camaraderie, and I eventually came to feel about my platoon as I had about the other members of my swimming team — the ‘us’ part of it at least as important as the trophies. Thus, by the time I was honorably discharged three years later, I was well prepared to join the ‘cop family’ Ellen Lodge had mentioned, the one that had walked away from her.

My third break was swimming itself. On a purely physical level, distance swimming demands that you learn to calm your mind. This is literally true. Stroke/stroke/ breathe; stroke/stroke/breathe; stroke/stroke/breathe; stroke/stroke/ breathe. Every stroke is designed to pull you through the water with maximum efficiency, every breath to fill your lungs completely.

Take this to the bank. Mental agitation of any kind interferes with these goals. When you’re angry, or even frustrated, your stroke becomes ragged and you wobble from side to side in your lane. Your lungs become tighter as well — a definite no-no when you get less than a second to breathe between strokes.

All of this is compounded by the conditions. With your ear plugs in, you hear nothing beyond the splashing of your arms and legs. With your goggles on, you see clearly only when your face is in the water. A red stripe on the bottom of the pool, which you dutifully follow, becomes your visual universe. In the end, your attention turns inward simply because there’s no other place for it to go.

I remember learning this lesson the hard way. Whenever my stroke was off, Coach Stehle would have me swimming laps until I was ready to sink to the bottom. Then he’d have me do a few more.

Initially, I took the obvious course. I tried not to think about anything that might upset me. Fat chance. I was a confrontational child and I needed my enemies. But what I did learn to do, finally, was strip my thoughts of emotion. An image would come into my mind — of my parents, for example, huddled around a mirror striped with lines of cocaine while I foraged through the cupboards in search of dinner — and I’d observe it without any feelings at all. Or I’d imagine Ramon Arellano trying to intimidate me in the lunch room without further imagining myself driving a knife through the side of his throat.

By the time I finished my junior year, I was pretty much addicted to swimming. The pool was the place where I could look at myself without arousing emotions like fear, rage and self-contempt. Not that I liked the angry fool I saw. But at least I didn’t hate him. Sure, he was a jerk who did everything he could to ruin his life. But he was my jerk and I could make of him what I would.

In my senior year, I began to redefine myself. I didn’t want to be a jerk any more. I knew that going in. Putting a face to the new self I hoped to create was much more difficult. What did I hope to become? The question was never directly answered. Instead, as I swam my way through high school, then through a long tour in Berlin, I not only became less angry, I began to like my life, as it was and as I hoped it would be. I wasn’t asking for much. I had no grand ambitions. I just wanted an ordinary life, as free from the chaos of my childhood as possible.

And so I continued to believe as I walked out of the locker room and stood by the edge of an empty pool fourteen hours after the murder of David Lodge. The air around me, cool enough to produce goose bumps, was saturated with humidity and the odor of chlorine. Though it’d been years since I’d loosened up before a workout, I hesitated long enough to draw a few deep breaths, gradually expanding my lungs. Then I dove into the water and began to swim.

For the first few laps, as the muscles of my shoulders and back gradually stretched out, I didn’t think about much of anything. The water flowed over my face and body, holding me in an embrace at once tender and distinctly sexual. The sensations were luxurious, as always, and I basked in them, knowing they came with no strings attached. This was purely for me, purely about me. This was mine.

Still, I knew where my thoughts were headed once I settled into a steady grind. In the army, I’d learned to smell trouble coming, to avoid it. No confrontations, especially with officers, that was the name of the game. And that meant no black-market bullshit, no cigarettes smuggled off the base, no drunken brawls, no pregnant frauleins.

When I became a cop, it was more of the same. Be where you’re supposed to be and don’t jam up the sergeant. Write your traffic tickets, twenty-five parkers and five movers, every month without fail. Make certain that your monthly activity reports are complete and current.

Bottom line: not being a pain in the ass to my superiors on the chain of command worked for me. I pretty much had the ordinary life I wanted. Maybe it was a bachelor’s life, untrusting and sometimes lonely, but half the kids I hung with in my adolescence had been to prison, and not a few of them were dead. So if my glass was a few inches short of full, I wasn’t complaining.

The red stripe beneath me never shifted when I got down to business. The pull of the right and left sides of my body remained in sync even as I admitted that a new element had entered my ordinary life. I needed to examine that element and I decided that I would. As soon as I figured out what it was.

But I was sure about one thing. Lodge’s face had been plastered all over the evening news and wasn’t likely to disappear anytime soon. The press would be watching the investigation; the bosses, too. When it comes to protecting the job, the big dogs at the Puzzle Palace are all white knights. And all willing to sacrifice a peasant or two, if that’s what it takes.

I rechecked my position as I kicked out of a turn. By then, I was at the peak of my strength, in a swimmer’s high, my body running on full automatic. When my hands cut the water, I felt as if I was about to yank the other side of the pool toward me. An illusion, naturally, like the powerful sense that I could go on forever. I’d get tired soon enough, at which point the far end of the pool would shift into full retreat, growing more distant with every turn.

Methodically, I reviewed the day’s events, evoking a series of images beginning with the body of David Lodge sprawled on the frozen ground and finishing with Detective Linus Potter’s nasty smile when he told me that Tony Szarek, the Broom, was dead. It was all so convenient: the ski masks, the river of brass, the carefully aimed coup de grace, the double-parked Toyota, the forbidding TEC-9, the widow’s evasive answers. Every element led toward DuWayne Spott.

I’d come up against staged murder scenes a few times in the past. In each of those cases, the staging was an afterthought, a coda to a rage-motivated attack. The Lodge scene was a lot more elaborate. Clearly the scenario had been planned in advance. Just as clearly, it hadn’t been planned by DuWayne Spott. The purpose of staging is to lead investigators away from the guilty party or parties, not toward them.

So what did all this mean to me? I was climbing out of the pool, a half-hour later, when I finally decided that I couldn’t answer the question. I just didn’t have enough information. Meanwhile, there were cold winds blowing out there. Sailing into them made no sense at all.

I went to my locker for a towel and found the light on in Conrad Stehle’s small office. I wasn’t surprised. Conrad had been subject to periods of insomnia ever since his wife, Helen, died two years before. Typically, he refused to toss and turn between the sheets, opting to stroll the few blocks from his house to his office at the Y. Sometimes he swam laps in an effort to wear himself out, but usually he settled for doing a little paperwork in the hope that one of his buddies would happen along. As I included myself in that group, I stuck my head in the door.