David Coe - Spell Blind

“When was this, Pop?”

“Dad and Mom drove me to water, to cottonwoods. But there were none to see. None with anything on them. None that weren’t yellow already.”

“So you were a kid? This was with Gran and Pappy?”

“’S different now. Wind and rain. That’s what they say. Wind and rain. When it rains, at night, the sky over there is orange.” He pointed with the spoon, dripping milk on his jeans. “The colors are confusing now. Yellow and blue, brown and orange. Used to be I understood better.”

Something in the way he said this made me sit forward.

“When was that?”

He dropped his gaze, but now he knew I was there.

“Before.”

“Before what? Before you left the job? Before Mom died? Before I was born?”

“’S harder now.” He glanced out at the desert once more. “It’s been a long time.”

“Do you remember Namid, Dad?”

I’m not certain what moved me to ask the question, but as soon as it crossed my lips he turned his head and looked right at me. Even after all these years, after watching his decline, after feeding him, and helping him take a piss and change into his pajamas on those really tough days, I still found his gaze arresting. Those pale gray eyes were so similar to my own that it was like staring into a mirror and seeing myself thirty years from now. The rough white beard and mustache, the long, lean face-it was me; me as I will be.

“Namid?” he said.

“You do remember him, don’t you? The runemyste. He taught you how to do magic. He might have come to you sometimes during-” I stopped. We hadn’t spoken about the phasings and magic in almost fifteen years, since I accused him of being a drunk and stormed out of the house. I’d never told him that I could conjure, or that I understood now what it was like during the full moons. After all these years, I still didn’t know how to start that conversation. “During a case,” I finally said, knowing how lame it probably sounded; knowing that he wouldn’t notice. By then I’d lost him again. He’d turned away and the glimmer I’d seen in his eyes had vanished. They were unfocused again, the way they had been when I arrived.

“There was lightning. It was gray and cool, and lightning cut the clouds in half. The wind blew then. Colder than it is now, but it blew the same. And birds soared by like leaves. They couldn’t help themselves and they couldn’t fight it. They just flew by, black against the gray. I couldn’t hear them, but I saw them. They went sideways, like they were caught in some current, like white water. . ”

I made myself sit through it, like I did every week. There were times when staying with my dad was a pleasure, when the hours passed as easily as an afternoon in the mountains. Most days, though, were like this one. I’d long ago given up trying to decipher all that he said, although I did think it interesting that as soon as I mentioned Namid he started talking about rain and white water, as if he could see the runemyste in front of him, fluid and as changeable in his moods as the sea. But after a time, even this thin thread was lost, and he rambled on about the desert and hawks and the damn wind.

At midday I went back inside the trailer and made a couple of sandwiches. Dad barely touched his, but I ate mine, happy for any distraction. After cleaning up the dishes and cutting board, I stepped back outside.

“I should get going, Dad. I’ve got work to do.”

“They treating you well?” he asked. “They made you a sergeant yet?”

He forgot sometimes that I’d left the force. I had told him several times, of course, and we’d had plenty of conversations about my work as a PI. But, hell, at least he was speaking to me instead of at me.

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

“You can trust Namid, you know?”

I gazed at him, not knowing what to say. He was like this sometimes: incoherent one moment, lucid as can be the next.

“You hear me?”

“What do you remember about Namid, Dad?”

He shrugged. All the while he kept gazing at the mountains, but he was frowning now, wrestling with memories.

“Not much,” he said at last. “It’s all muddled today. But he was a friend when others weren’t.” He cast a look my way. “Know what I mean?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

“Get going,” he said. “Go work.”

I kissed his forehead again, and he gave my hand a squeeze.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said, and left him.

Funny how even that little bit of a connection can make the whole damn visit worthwhile.

I drove back to my office to check for mail-it was all bills and junk-take in the paper, and get my phone messages. The Republic led off with another story about Claudia’s death, but there was nothing new in it except a more detailed statement from the M.E. and the announcement that her family was putting up a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward for the capture of her killer. For the most part, the article repeated details from yesterday’s story and gave a lengthy recap of the facts from previous Blind Angel murders. Still, I read through all of it, scanning the piece for any mention of me, but it seemed that Billie Castle was the only reporter in Phoenix who found me interesting. I wondered if I should be flattered.

I was on my way out the door to go see Orestes Quinley when the phone rang. I thought about letting the machine get it, then reconsidered. I reached it on the third ring.

“Fearsson.”

“Justis.” Kona’s voice.

“Hey, partner. What’s up?”

“You can tell just from seeing a guy if he’s a. . you know, like you, right?”

“You mean, if someone’s a weremyste?”

“Right. You can see it, can’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

“I need you to come down to 620 and take a look at someone for me. Right away.” She sounded excited and abruptly my heart was pounding, too.

“You think you’ve got him?” I asked.

“Maybe. We’re working blind here, partner. No pun intended. We need your eyes on this one.”

“Yeah, all right. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I hung up and hurried down to the Z-ster.

As Phoenix moves through May into June, two things in the city become constant: traffic and heat. Driving downtown in the middle of the day I had to struggle with both.

It took me the better part of an hour to get from Chandler to 620, even though it was no more than a twenty-five-mile drive. As I walked from the lot to HQ, a hot wind swirled around the street lifting scraps of paper and plastic wrappers into the air. There were cops everywhere, of course. Men and women arriving for work, others leaving, guys on duty bringing in perps. 620 was always a busy place, and even now, a year and half after leaving the force, I hungered to be part of it.

I recognized some of the faces, though not all. It’s not easy being a cop; the hours suck, it eats up your personal life, and no one with integrity is going to get rich on the job. Not surprisingly in a city as big as this one, there’s a good deal of turnover at any one department. So as I entered the building, a fair number of the cops inside ignored me. A few others eyed me with cool indifference, but said nothing.

To be honest, I was shaking all over; I would have preferred that no one see me. I wanted to feel like I still belonged, but I didn’t, couldn’t. And so what I really wanted was to be somewhere else-anywhere else.

“Hey, Jay! What brings you back here?”

Carla Jaroso had been the front desk officer at 620 for as long as I could remember, as if in defiance of all that turnover. She was short and round, with the friendliest face you ever saw. Her hair was almost pure white now, but her skin was the color of dark rum, and still as smooth as the day I met her.