Michael Connelly - The Poet

I looked down at the floor. I wanted to go but didn't know how to exit. Her pain and anger radiated toward me like heat from a closed oven.

"You want to know about that girl," she said in a low, calmer voice. "That's what all the detectives asked about."

"Yes. Why did this one…?"

I didn't know how to phrase the question.

"Why did it make him forget about everything good in his life? The answer is I don't know. I don't goddamn know."

I could see anger and tears welling in her eyes again. It was as if her husband had deserted her for another woman.

And here I was, as close a flesh and blood approximation of Sean as she would ever see now. No wonder she was venting her anger and pain at me.

"Did he talk about the case at home?" I asked.

"Not especially. He told me about cases from time to time. This one didn't seem that different except for what happened to her. He told me what the killer did to her. He told me how he had to look at her. After, I mean. I know it bothered him but a lot of things bothered him. A lot of cases. He didn't want anybody to get away. He always said that."

"But this time he went to see that doctor."

"He'd had dreams and I told him he should go. I made him go."

"What were the dreams?"

"That he was there. You know, when it happened to her. He dreamed he saw it but couldn't do anything to stop it."

Her comment made me think of another death a long time ago. Sarah. Falling through the ice. I remembered the helpless feeling of watching and being unable to do anything. I looked at Riley.

"You know why Sean went up there?"

"No."

"Was it because of Sarah?"

"I said I don't know."

"That was before we knew you. But that was where she died. An accident…"

"I know, Jack. But I don't know what it had to do with anything. Not now."

I didn't, either. It was one of many confusing thoughts but I couldn't let it go.

Before heading back to Denver I drove over to the cemetery. I don't know what I was doing. It was dark and there had been two snows since the funeral. It took me fifteen minutes just to find the spot where Sean was in the ground. There was no stone yet. I found it by finding the one next to it. My sister's.

On Sean's there were a couple of pots of frozen flowers and a plastic sign sticking out of the snow with his name on it. There were no flowers on Sarah's. I looked at Sean's spot for a while. It was a clear night and the moonlight was enough for me to see. My breath came out in clouds.

"How come, Sean?" I asked out loud. "How come?" I realized what I was doing and looked around. I was the only one in the cemetery. The only one alive. I thought about what Riley had said about Sean not wanting anybody to get away. And I thought about how I didn't even care about such things, as long as it made a good thirty-inch story. How had we separated so completely? My brother and I. My twin. I didn't know. It just made me feel sad.

Made me feel like maybe the wrong one was in the ground.

I remembered what Wexler had said that first night when they came for me and told me about my brother. He talked about all the shit coming down the pipe finally being too much for Sean. I still didn't believe it. But I had to believe something. I thought of Riley and the pictures of Theresa Lofton. And I thought of my sister slipping through the ice. I believed then that the girl's murder had infected my brother with the most desperate kind of hopelessness. I believed he became haunted by that hopelessness and the crystal-blue eyes of the girl who had been cut in half. And since he didn't have his brother to turn to, he turned to his sister. He went to the lake that took her. And then he joined her.

I walked out of the cemetery without looking back.

Gladden posted himself at a spot along the railing on the other side from where the woman took the tickets from the children. She couldn't see him. But once the great carousel began turning, he was able to study each child. Gladden pushed his fingers through his dyed blond hair and looked around. He was pretty sure everybody else regarded him as just another parent.

The ride was starting again. The calliope was grinding out the strains of a song Gladden could not identify and the horses began their bobbing, counterclockwise turn. Gladden had never actually ridden on the carousel, though he had seen that many of the parents got on with their children. He thought that it might be too risky for him to do it.

He noticed a girl of about five clinging desperately to one of the black stallions. She was leaning forward with her tiny arms wrapped around the candy-striped pole that came up through the painted horse's neck. One side of her little pink shorts had ridden up the inside of her thigh. Her skin was coffee brown. Gladden reached into his duffel and brought out the camera. He amped up the shutter speed to cut down on movement blurring and pointed the camera at the carousel. He focused and waited for the girl to come around again.

It took him two revolutions of the carousel but he believed he got the shot and brought the camera back down. He looked around just to be sure he was cool and he noticed a man leaning on the railing about twenty feet to his right. The man hadn't been there before. And most alarming, he was wearing a sport coat and tie. The man was either a pervert or a policeman. Gladden decided he'd better leave.

Out on the pier the sun was almost blinding. Gladden shoved the camera into the duffel and pulled his mirrored shades out. He decided to walk out further on the pier to where it was crowded. He could lose this guy if he had to. If he was actually being followed. He walked about halfway out, nice and steady, acting cool. Then he stopped along the railing and turned and leaned back against it as if he wanted to catch a few rays. He turned his face up toward the sun but his eyes, behind the mirrors, took in the area of the pier he had just come from.

For a few moments there was nothing. He didn't see the man in the sport coat and tie. Then he saw him, jacket over the arm, sunglasses on, walking along the front of the arcade concession, slowly moving toward Gladden.

"Fuck!" Gladden said out loud.

A woman sitting on a nearby bench with a young boy looked at Gladden with baleful eyes when she and the boy heard the exclamation.

"Sorry," Gladden said.

He turned and looked around the rest of the pier. He had to think quickly. He knew cops usually worked in pairs while in the field. Where was the other one? It took him thirty seconds but he picked her out of the crowd. A woman about thirty yards behind the man in the tie. She was wearing long pants and a polo shirt. Not as formal as the man.

She blended in, except for the two-way radio down at her side. Gladden could see that she was trying to hide it. As he watched, she turned so that her back was to him and began talking into the two-way.

She had just called for backup. Had to be. He had to stay cool but come up with a plan. The man in the tie was maybe twenty yards away. Gladden stepped away from the railing and started walking at a slightly faster pace toward the end of the pier. He did what the woman cop had done. He used his body as a shield and pulled the duffel bag around so that it was in front of him. He unzipped it and reached in and grabbed the camera. Without pulling it out, he turned it over until he found the CLEAR switch and erased the chip. There wasn't much on there. The girl on the carousel, a few kids at the public showers. No big loss.

That done, he again proceeded down the pier. He took his cigarettes out of the bag and, using his body as a shield, turned around and huddled against the wind to light one. When he had the smoke lit, he looked up and saw the two cops were getting closer. He knew they thought they had him bottled. He was going to the dead end of the pier. The woman had caught up to the man and they were talking as they closed in. Probably deciding whether to wait for the backup, Gladden thought.