Faye Kellerman - Double Homicide

“Thinking about your mom made me low but also a little high. Not like in drunk. Encouraged. All of a sudden I knew I was doing the right thing by coming to this place. I’m looking out the window and the glass is all wet and all you can see of the sky is black and a big, blurry moon. Only this time, it was two moons-the wet glass bent the light in a way that created this image. Am I making myself clear?”

“Refraction,” said Darrel. He’d taken Physical Science for Non-Science Majors, pulled a B.

Ed regarded his son with pride. “Exactly. Refraction. Not two totally separate moons, more like one on top of the other, maybe two-thirds overlapping. It was beautiful. And this strong feeling came over me. Your mom was communicating with me. ”Cause that’s what we were like. Together all the time, but we were separate people, just enough overlap to make it work. We were fifteen when we met, had to wait until we were seventeen to get married ‘cause her dad was an alcoholic hard case and he hated my guts.“

“I thought Grandpa liked you.”

“He came to like me,” said Ed. “By the time you knew him, he liked everyone.”

Darrel’s memories of his grandfather were bland and pleasant. Alcoholic hard case? What other surprises did his father have in store?

“Anyway, the two moons were obviously your mom and me, and I decided then and there to honor her by taking the name. Consulted a lawyer here in town, went over to the courthouse, and did it. It’s official and legal, son, in the eyes of the state of New Mexico. More important, it’s sacred-holy in my eyes.”

A year after Darrel moved in with his father, Edward Two Moons was diagnosed with bilateral small-cell carcinoma of the lung. The cancer had spread to his liver, and the doctors said to go home and enjoy the time he had left.

The first few months were okay, just a dry, persistent cough and some shortness of breath. Dad read a lot about the old Indian religion and seemed at peace. Darrel faked being relaxed, but his eyes hurt all the time.

The last month was rough, all of it spent at the hospital. Darrel sat by his father’s bed and listened to his father breathe. Watched the monitors idly and got friendly with some nurses. No tears came, just a deep ache in his belly. He lost fifteen pounds.

But he didn’t feel weak. Just the opposite, as if drawing upon some kind of reserve.

The last day of his life, Edward Two Moons slept.

Except for one time, middle of the night, when he sat up, gasping, looking scared.

Darrel rushed over and held him. Tried to ease him back down, but Dad wanted to remain upright and he fought it.

Darrel complied and his father finally relaxed. Lights from the monitors turned his face sickly green. His lips were moving, but no sound was coming out. Struggling to say something. Darrel looked him straight in the eye, but by now his father wasn’t seeing anything.

Darrel held him tight and put his ear next to his father’s lips.

Dry rasping came out. Then:

“Change. Son. Is. Good.”

Then he sank back to sleep. An hour later, he was gone.

The day after the funeral, Darrel went over to the courthouse and filed papers for a name change.

Katz thought about Olafson’s murder on the drive home.

Doc and Darrel had talked about anger, and maybe they were right. But if anger was the prime motivation, you’d have predicted multiple blows, not one massive crusher.

A surprised burglar would fit with that. So did the open storage room.

Some sort of confrontation, Olafson announcing he was calling the police, turning his back on the bad guy.

Stupid move. Olafson’s comments about suing Bart and EmmaSkaggsreeked ofarrogance. Maybehe’d gotten overconfident and had not taken the burglar seriously.

The oversize chrome hammer implied the bad guy hadn’t come prepared to kill. Did the selection of weapon imply some sort of symbolic deal-killed by art, like Darrel had said-or just opportunism?

Katz had lived with symbols. That’s what you got when you married an artist.

A would-be artist.

First the sculptures, then the shitty paintings.

Be kind. Valerie had some talent. Just not enough.

He put her out of his mind and returned to the case. Came up with nothing new but was still thinking when he reached his space and parked and entered. The room was just as he’d left it: pin-neat. He pulled down the Murphy bed, ate, and watched TV and thought some more.

He lived in a three-hundred-square-foot tin-roofed outbuilding behind the Rolling Stone Marble and Granite Yard on South Cerillos. It had a front room and a preformed fiberglass lav. Warmth courtesy of a space heater, air-conditioning courtesy of opening the windows. He cooked on a hot plate, kept his few belongings in a steel locker. The view was stone slabs stacked vertically and forklifts.

Temporary lodgings that had stretched to permanent. Semipermanent, since maybe one day he’d find a real house. There was no reason to right now, because the rent was minimal and he had no one to impress. Back in New York, the same dough wouldn’t have gotten him a cot in a basement.

He was the middle son of a dentist and a hygienist, the brother of two other tooth jockeys, raised in Great Neck, a onetime jock but no student, the black sheep of a resolutely middle-class family. After dropping out of SUNY Binghamton, he’d worked as a bartender in Manhattan for five years before returning to John Jay and earning a degree in criminal justice.

During his five years with NYPD, he’d ridden a patrol car in Bed-Stuy, done some dope-undercover, some jail duty, finished up at the Two-Four in the city, working the western border of Central Park from 59th to 86th. Nice job, covering the park. Until it wasn’t.

He continued to moonlight as a bartender, was socking away enough money to buy a Corvette, though he had no idea where he’d park it or when he’d use it. He was mixing ridiculous fruit martinis at a place in the Village the night he met Valerie. At first, he hadn’t thought much of her. It was her girlfriend Mona who’d caught his eye; back then he’d been into breasts and blondes. Later, when he learned how crazy Mona was, he was thankful he hadn’t gotten involved with her. Not that things had turned out so great with Valerie, but you couldn’t put that down to her being nuts.

Just…

No sense lingering.

He read a paperback for a while-a police novel that bore no resemblance to any reality he knew, which was exactly what he needed. Drowsy within minutes, he placed the book on the floor, turned off the light, and stretched out.

The sun would be up soon, and by seven a.m., Al Kil-cannon and the workers in the stone yard would be shouting and laughing and getting the machinery going. Sometimes Al brought his dogs and they barked like crazy. Katz had his earplugs ready on the nightstand.

But maybe he wouldn’t use them. Maybe he should just get up, dress warm, and take a run, be ready to meet Darrel at Denny’s.

Waking up in this dump could be depressing. He didn’t miss Valerie, but he did miss greeting the morning with a warm body next to him.

Maybe he missed her a little.

Maybe he was too damned tired to know how he felt.

The night they met, Mona got picked up by some loser, and Valerie was stuck sitting there by herself. Now, out from Mona’s shadow, she seemed more visible and Steve noticed her. Dark hair cut in a page, pale oval face, maybe ten extra pounds, but the distribution was pretty good. Big eyes, even from a distance. She looked forlorn and he felt sorry for her, sent her a complimentary cosmopolitan. She glanced over at the bar, raised her eyebrows, and came over.

Definitely good distribution.