Radu-Chapter XXV (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)

Previous Installments-

Part One
Prologue and Chapters I-X

Part Two
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII

Part Three
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV

Radu-Chapter XXV (A Novel by Patrick Kelley)
11 pages approximate
Berry dreaded sending his kids away, but felt he had no choice. Things were becoming more dangerous than he ever imagined they would have, and too many people knew where he lived. Too many people knew where his children went to school. Too many people knew enough to understand that Lieutenant James Berry had one weakness and one weakness only-his family.

It was gut wrenching, especially as concerning his oldest child, twelve-year-old Darrell. He was at that age where a son needed his father more than ever, even though he was growing more and more difficult. When he heard the news of his up-and-coming move to Salt Lake City, he became more sullen than ever.

To nine-year-old Karinda and seven-year-old Jimmy, it was also hard, though not as difficult. Karinda liked the idea of spending some time with her mom, and to Jimmy it was a big adventure. They were ready.

“Darrell, come on, son, your mom will be here shortly,” he shouted up the steps. After a couple of minutes, Darrell came down, lugging two suitcases, which he set by the door alongside the others.

“So how long is this going to be?” he asked.

“Maybe just a few months,” Berry said. “It may be a couple of years or so, just depends on how everything goes.”

“Well, I think it sucks,” the young teen said. “That woman ain’t my mom, and I’ll never see her as my mom. How in the hell can I look at her as my mom or even pretend she is, after she walked off and left us when I was like five and Jimmy was like, hell, not even a year old?”

Berry reacted with a pained expression, which he tried to hide, but turning away from his son just added fuel to the fire of his concerns.

“Darrell, a lot went down that you don’t know about,” he said. “It wasn’t all her fault.”

“Yeah, something is always going down that I don’t know nothin’ about,” he said.

“For God’s sake, Darrell, you go there every summer, have been for three years now, how is this that much different? I’ll be in touch, I swear. Hell, I might even be coming around there sometime. Who knows, I might even move there.”

“You mean you and mommy might get back together?” Karinda asked, obviously pleased at the prospect.

“Well, I didn’t say that now,” Berry replied. “Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dragons lie. Not that your mom is a dragon, just that sometimes two people can’t stay together.”

Karinda looked down as she faked a smile, as Berry looked over to his youngest, little Jimmy.

“So anything you want to say little man?” he asked as he ruffled the kid’s hair. “You are going to look out for these two for me, right?”

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “What about you? Will you be all right, with your hand and all?”

Berry looked at his hand, still in a cast after seven excruciatingly difficult surgeries.

“The hand will be fine,” he said. “I can feel it tingling more every day, and the doc says it should be completely healed in another couple of months or so. So those bad guys better watch out, huh?”

Suddenly Karinda started crying, saying she did not want to leave, and James lowered into a crouching position and gathered her in his right arm, and then reached out for Jimmy, who fell into his other arm, as Berry cried.

“I love you both,” he said, as suddenly Berry heard the honking of the car horn from outside. They told him they loved him too, after which he rose and looked at Darrell, who now began to cry for the first time in years. Berry held his son up to him, told him he loved him, but by then Darrell could barely talk.

“Look out for yourself, and your brother and sister,” he told him.

“You do the same dad,” Darrell replied. “I love you.”

They went outside, where Frieda stood outside the Ford Explorer, its side passenger’s door open and ready to load.

Within a couple of minutes, the suitcases and other belongings were loaded up, and they were ready to go, but Frieda indicated a need to talk to Berry in private.

‘I’m going to need some more money,” she said.

“Hell, I’m giving you sixty grand a year, what more could you need?” he asked.

“Another sixty grand,” she said. “Kids are expensive, you know. You want them to be happy, don’t you?”

Berry unconsciously wiped his brow as he breathed deeply.

“Whatever I send you for the kids had damn well better be spent on the kids,” he replied. “I want them to know its coming from me too, because”-

“Hey, no problem,” Frieda replied. “Don’t worry, James. I promise I’ll look after them like they were my own.”

Berry shot her a stern look

“You know, that is really a smart-ass thing for you to be saying, isn’t it?” he asked. “I hope you don’t consider that funny, because I don’t think it’s a damn bit funny. In fact, I think it’s really kind of sad, don’t you?”

“James, you know I love these kids,” she said, now somewhat hurt by Berry’s none-too-subtle chiding. “I honestly appreciate you giving me the chances you’ve given me. God knows I don’t deserve it.”

“I don’t believe that or I’d never send them to stay with you,” he replied.

“I promise I’ll take good care of them,” she said. “I won’t let you down. You can trust me.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Berry replied. “And for what it’s worth, I know that.”

“Good, then it’s settled,” Frieda said with a sigh. “Now, give me a hug to make it look good, and then I got to get the hell out of here.”

He hugged her, after which Frieda went to the car, now loaded with the children’s belongings. Berry tried to look brave as the kids waved goodbye and shouted they loved him, but as he waved back at them and told them he loved them too, all the time he smiled he wondered if he looked as stupid as he felt. He should have heard from Dorothy a week ago but had not. It was starting to concern him, and he wondered whether others had taken it on themselves to do the job he was supposed to do, and if so, why? The obvious implication might well be that somebody did not trust him, and that might certainly bode ill for him in some way or another.

It made it even more imperative that he do everything he had to do as though nothing were amiss. He had a job to do today, and he had to step on it before he ran behind schedule. He got in his car and drove to the upscale neighborhood where the girl lived, and parked across the street and just down two or three houses down, and waited. Before an hour went by, the girl left the house hopping mad. He could see the girl’s mother standing in the doorway. Berry rolled down his window just in time to hear the woman demand that her daughter return to the house.

“Fuck you, you fucking bitch!” the girl screamed in what was about the angriest tone of voice he ever heard. The girl went bounding down the street, and James wondered if this might be a good time to pull up to her and offer her a ride. No, he decided, that might look a little too suspicious. He really wanted nothing to do with this, but it was wholly out of his hands now. He knew what he had to do. He went to church.

At this time of day, no one was there, but the door was always open, as usual, and so he entered, dipped his good hand into the holy water, crossed himself, genuflected briefly, and then took his place at a pew as he started repeating the rosary. Hr then enunciated the Apostle’s Creed, after which he prayed earnestly for guidance. He was here earlier today, as he was almost every day, in time to partake of the Eucharist, but this time was different.

He heard the door open, and knew from the steps it was her. He lowered his head and shut his eyes, hoping he was wrong, that it was not her or that if it was she would back out at the last minute, and simply walk out. He told himself it would be out of his hands then. What could they say? He was only a human being, after all, and could only do so much. He was no miracle worker.

As he stood there, wishing he could make himself invisible, he noted the approach of the girl who even now kneeled down in the pew beside him.

“Hey are you trying to avoid me or something?” she said. “I’m here.”

“Yeah, I know, I’ll be ready in a minute,” he said.

“Are you sure you really know Dwayne Letcher?” the girl asked.

“You didn’t say anything to your parents or anything else about what we talked about did you?”

“Oh, hell no,” she said. “Not that I give a damn what they think, but I don’t want to mess up a good thing. Are you sure you can get me a job on one of Toby’s videos? You saw me dance, right?”

Indeed, Berry had seen the girl’s dance, and though he thought she was all right, Toby was unimpressed when he saw the audition tape the girl made.

“Let me get this straight,” he had said. “You say this girl is just sixteen years old, but you want me to”-

“I want you to do what the fuck I tell you,” Berry told him. “Everything will work out fine.”

That ended it, but Berry was really no happier than Toby had been. Still, he had no more choice than did his Citizen Informant. It was something Berry put down as a painful necessity.

“Yeah, not only did I see it, so did Toby.” he now told Susan Chou, “He practically begged me to send you over.”

The young girl was ecstatic, and for a minute Berry thought she was going to maul him right there in the church. It was a temptation, but luckily her firm, lithe body backed away from the embrace, which reminded him very much of when he began his affair with Marnie Moloku when she was about the same age as this girl.

“I still don’t get why you’re doing this,” she said. “Who am I that you’re so interested in helping me?”

“I just know talent when I see it, and I know you’ve got ambition,” he replied. “Look at it this way, one of these days when I’m an old man, and you’re a big star, I can brag to my grandkids that I helped you along the way, so to speak.”

“That’s cool, Mr. Berry, but how did you even know about me wanting to be in the music business? How do you know Toby anyway? Why would you even want to help me? I mean, I know you’re a devout Christian, as much as my mom supposedly is, and everybody here knows I had an abortion. I mean, shit, everybody has made it clear to me that as far as they’re concerned I’m the scum of the earth, whether they come right out and say it or not. I had already about had it with this place and these hypocrites until I met you a couple of weeks ago. Still, why me?”

“Oh, it’s just something I have to do, little lady,” Berry replied. “Everybody needs a second chance in life, and everybody deserves a chance to live their dream. Am I sounding hackneyed enough yet?”

“Hell I don’t even know what that means?” she said with a heartily childish laugh. “All I know is, I’m ready.”

Berry looked at her questioningly, s he said to himself that, yes, this one was probably always ready. At the same time, he almost hoped something would happen to change her mind-a sign from God perhaps, or a sudden outbreak of genital herpes. It was obvious though that something was driving her to take the path of least resistance on a road straight to her doom.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “When I talked to you about all this before you thought I was some pervert trying to pick up young girls.”

“Yeah, I called the Baltimore Police Department and asked to speak to you. They told me that you were on sick leave. I guess it’s your hand huh? What happened to it?”

“It got caught in a vise,” he said now showing some signs of concern. “Did you tell them who you were?”

“No, I just said I was a friend and I would call you at home,” she said. “Wow, though, I found out you’re some kind of hero or something. You helped catch some of those Arabs that blew up the hospital, and busted up that street gang too.”

“Did you call there from home or from a pay phone?” he asked, becoming increasingly worried.

“My cell phone,” she said. “What are you so worried about?”

“Well, for one thing, see, it wouldn’t look good for Toby if it got out he was friends with the cop that busted up the Pulse, because it would mess up his street creds,” he explained. “Just be sure you don’t mention that to anybody, especially to anybody around Toby. Also, the Arab thing at the hospital is still an ongoing investigation, and a lot of it is hush-hush, because we’re trying to prevent a backlash against innocent members of the Islamic community.”

“What does all this have to do with me?” Susan asked, and he could tell she was once more becoming suspicious of his true motives.

“Well, nothing, but if it gets out you’ve been calling me at work, you might get dragged into it,” he said. “That’s why you have to keep all of this between me and you, especially about me and Toby.”

She just looked at him for a second or two as though she were confused and not sure how to process this. He knew he had to do something, because he was losing her, and now he understood he could not afford to let that happen.

“Okay, let me put it to you this way,” he said. “Toby doesn’t work for me-I work for Toby.”

“Yeah, you explained that to me before,” she replied.

“Yeah, well here’s the thing,” he continued. “He found out it was actually the Pulse that blew up that hospital, and tried to blame it on the Arabs, in retribution for those kids that were poisoned. Two of those kids were relatives of the gang leader, but when Toby found out about it, he was appalled, and, well, he came to me. He thinks the Arabs had nothing to do with the poisoning either, and Toby hates terrorists, so when the Pulse pulled that stunt, it was the last straw. It’s a mess, and we’re still trying to work it out, but you have to keep quiet about all this.”

“Wow! Sure, Mr. Berry, my lips are sealed,” she said. “I guess its good you told me all this. Some people are saying Toby fucked over his own gang, but hell I know that’s not right, he was shot twice at that weirdo place, right?”

“Actually, the gang leader shot him because he knew Toby turned against them over the terrorist plot they hatched. They were planning to blow up Baltimore. The Reverend Harvey Caldwell was the ringleader of every bit of it. He was crazy as a loon, but nobody realized how insane he really was until he started ranting about a dead woman coming out of the toilet after him.”

The girl was in a state of rapture by now, and only wanted more. Berry handed her the card with the address of the recording studios of Dwayne Lecher’s Lecherous Records, which was dead in the heart of Seventeenth Pulse territory. Susan Chou left the church with stars in her eyes. Berry was sure that when they found her, those stars would still be there. Before he left the church, he resumed his prayers, and lit a special candle for the soul of Susan Chou. He asked God that she not suffer any more than necessary, and then he prayed for forgiveness.

When he finally left the church, he called Toby, and told him to make sure he disposed of Susan Chou’s telephone. He would have to think of something if the police searched her records, he reasoned.

“Oh, and by the way, Toby,” he concluded. “When you get through fucking Marnie, send her over my way. She and I need to have a long talk about her mother. She still hasn’t shown up yet.”

Lecher made no denials, just a slight haruumph, before Berry hung up. By the time he got to the house, he fixed a sandwich and decided to just sit around and wait for his kids to call, as Frieda promised she would have them do somewhere en route. As he thought of all of this, Berry went to the picture on the mantle, the one taken of him and a slim, svelte Frieda on the day of their wedding.

“You sure have changed, Frieda,” he muttered.

Just as he turned from the picture, the lights went out, and he heard the calling of the bird from outside his house. It startled him from his reveries, and sent a chill through his blood. He walked out the back door, and into the yard, where the large female black vulture sat perched uneasily on top of the rose bush, the weight of the now bare branches straining under the birds weight as she flapped her wings.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as he felt himself growing weaker. Then, the blonde man stepped forward, dressed like someone out of the fifteenth century, his long, thick, wavy blonde hair still in an ever growing wind, his green eyes piercing into his heart and soul with a cold malice that paralyzed Berry at once in his tracks. The bird hovered nearby the man, who he had almost forgotten. How could he have forgotten him?

“I hope you have said your prayers, James,” the man said. “I hope you have partaken of the sacred host. I will have need of you soon.”

Please, no, Berry thought, not again. He thought it was over with, and then he forgot it completely. The man made him forget. Now, he was back, and Berry realized he only wanted one thing.

“Please don’t do that to me again,” he begged.

Then, the bird let out a loud call that pierced through Berry’s very fiber, and he shuddered as he whimpered.

“I am not here for that,” the blonde man replied. “Though your blood can sustain me, it tastes sour to me, James. No, I am here for a different reason. I need your help in a different way. You are going to help me, too, aren’t you, my friend?”

“Of course,” Berry promised. “I’ll do anything you say.”

“That is good, James,” the man replied as his voice started to become other-worldly in nature, as though Berry was now hearing through a vacuum in time and space.

“Your hand is better, is it not? Of course it is. See, I really mean you no ill will. You have been a good friend to me, and I am of the mind that thinks a man should take good care of his friends. That is why I know I can depend on you now. Look into my eyes, and you will see what I mean.

“You are a servant of the people of course, and as such I think you should know that a heinous crime is about to be committed.”

Berry looked into the ancient eyes that pierced into his soul, but all he saw was dead bodies, in what looked to be a morgue. He was not sure what it meant at first, until he recognized one of the girls. Then, he recognized another one. Then, he recognized the man, standing there in the morgue, with a gun in his hand.

“You know what you have to do now, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Berry whispered.

Berry did not even realize the man had vanished until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“James, are you all right?”

Berry turned to see the face of his longtime partner on the force, Frank Anderson.

“Frank, what are you doing here?” he asked.

“Oh, I just come by to see how you were getting along,” Frank replied. “I guess the kids have gone by now, huh?”

“Yeah, Frieda came and got them a couple of hours ago,” Berry replied. “It was almost like I stood there and let her wrench my heart out of my chest. Still, I had to do it.”

Berry indicated his damaged hand, reminding Anderson of the excuse he gave for the injury, as well as the need to send the kids away. One night, after returning from work, a gang of blacks assaulted him right outside his house and placed his hand in some kind of iron vise, with his gun in the same hand. It was obviously in retribution for his busting the Seventeenth Pulse, but unfortunately, he never got a good look at any of the perpetrators, who wore hoods.

Berry invited Frank to come inside for a beer, and the two men went inside the house. Frank noted the marriage photos of Berry and Frieda, and one taken of them and the kids, right after the birth of little Jimmy. They seemed so happy in the picture, though taken a mere two months before Frieda left Berry and abandoned her own kids.

“I’m sorry I missed Frieda”, Frank said as Berry handed him a Miller Genuine Draft. “For one thing, she had good taste in alcohol.”

“She hasn’t changed much,” Berry replied as he smiled at the jibe. “Put on some weight, though. Hell, you might not even recognize her.”

They sat and talked over old times, as Frank reminded him of how depressed he was at the time of the abrupt departure. Of course, Berry did not need him to remind him of that. He remembered well the time he came home, to find his wife livid with rage after Dorothy Moloku came to their house and told her of Berry’s affair with her sixteen year old daughter Marnie. She began throwing things at him, a vase, a potted plant, even a lamp. What made it worse-or perhaps what made it better in the long run-was that Berry had simultaneously engaged in an affair with Dorothy as well, which the woman also admitted to. It was the end of what seemed on the surface to be an idyllic, all American family.

“I have to say, though, it didn’t seem to affect your police work, at least not in the long run,” Frank said.

“I wasn’t aware it affected it at all,” Berry said as he shifted uncomfortably.

“Well, you forgot your great unsolved case,” Berry reminded him. “You never did find that woman that murdered her husband. Of course by the time they found out she’d already absconded with the insurance money, so who knows where she went off to, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” Berry said with a type of realization that portrayed the eruption of years of forgotten memories. “I remember that. Somehow, it came out her husband beat her all the time, so they autopsied his body and found evidence of poisoning. Yeah, I almost forgot that. What was that woman’s name, anyway?”

“Geraldine Malone,” Frank replied, as he finished his beer. “You know, I wouldn’t mind having another one of these. Who knows, maybe by the time I drink three or four they might actually start to taste good.”

“Yeah, sure,” Berry replied as he went to the refrigerator, from where he retrieved two more beers. “Damn, you sure got a memory on you, Frank, that was what-seven years ago?”

“Well, that eye for detail and long-term memory has kept me in the game,” Frank replied. “What surprised me is you don’t remember. I guess you don’t want to, though.”

“Well, why would you say that?” Berry replied uneasily.

“Oh hell, no big deal,” Frank said with a wave of the hand as he took another long drink of the canned beer. “We all have them, at least one of them.”

“We all have at least one of what?” Berry asked.

“The one that got away,” Frank asked with a shrug and a smile.

“Oh, yeah-the one that got away,” Berry said.

He affected a smile, but when he turned to look in the face of his partner and friend of some eight years on the Baltimore Police Department, he found himself shaken by the suddenly serious expression on the face of the grizzled old veteran, known widely as the master of a thousand interrogation techniques.

“I’ve got to say, I never thought you would never let another one get away,” Frank continued. “On the other hand, I guess Grace Rodescu is a lot more slippery than most.”

“What about Grace Rodescu?” Berry asked, starting to become uneasy.

“Oh, nothing much, just that I know for a time she was one of your CI’s, and for a while it looked like you mined her for every nugget you could dig out of her, but now she’s just disappeared, seemingly without a trace. You have to admit that is very unusual for someone with her profile. A published reporter, in addition to a heroin addict and a prostitute, with potential ties to organized crime, and here she just vanishes, in the aftermath of two particularly gruesome murders she is at least an alleged witness to.

“I don’t know,” he concluded with a shrug. “I just find it hard to believe you haven’t kept some lines of communication open, that’s all. You would seem to be one of the first people she would turn to. Of course, you might also be one of the first people she would hide from, but I doubt it would be that hard for you to find her, if you really put your mind to it.”

Frank took another sip of beer as Berry eyed him with curiosity.

“Well, I have been rather occupied,” you know, Berry reminded him as he indicated his mangled hand. “Distracted, you might say. I promise you, Frank, there ain’t going to be any more Geraldine Malones. Wherever Grace is, I’ll find her. Of course that will be a bit easier when I’m put back on active duty.”

Frank nodded, and then looked toward the clock.

“Frank, is there another reason you’re here that you’re not telling me about?”

“Well, yeah, to tell you the truth, there is,” he said. “Like I said, it’s this photographic memory of mine. Sometimes I think it is a curse, but it can be a blessing in disguise. For example, I remember you telling me about the woman you were having an affair with. Her name was Moloku, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, Dorothy, that’s right,” Berry replied. “Damn, Frank, you do have a memory. Anyway, yeah, that was a big fuck-up on my part, getting involved with a woman that turned out to be the wife of a Russian mob associate. I dropped that hot potato real quick, believe me.”

Frank was looking at his longtime friend now more glumly than ever.

“You really don’t know, do you?”

“I don’t know about what?” Berry asked, growing more visibly alarmed by the second.

“Voroslav Moloku was murdered last week, and his wife Dorothy seems to have disappeared.”

Berry rose in his chair in an attempt to portray his growing anxiety concerning Frank’s obvious suspicions as a state of realistic and understandable surprise.

“My God!” he exclaimed. “No, of course I didn’t know about it. It doesn’t surprise me in the least, but-oh my Lord!”

“James, you’d better sit down, because that’s not all of it,” Frank continued. “You have to promise me you’re not going to breath a word of anything I’m about to tell you. I’ll just come right out and tell you-Internal Affairs is looking at you as possibly being complicit in his murder.”

For a while, Berry said nothing, as he sat back in his recliner, trying to put his thoughts into some kind of logical semblance of order, all the while pretending to process the news he was hearing, supposedly for the first time.

“Frank, that’s just crazy,” he finally said.

“Well, here’s the thing,” Frank continued. “Whoever killed Mr. Moloku left your gun at the crime scene, and evidently tried to make it look like a suicide, except whoever did it wiped the gun clean. There were no prints on the gun at all, not even Moloku’s, which does not make a bit of sense. According to forensics, it has been years since anybody even cleaned and oiled the damn gun, so there definitely should have been prints. It’s a wonder the damn thing didn’t explode and blow his or somebody’s hand off, to be frank.”

“Oh for God’s sake Frank, I got this injury six weeks ago,” Berry reminded him. “Do you really think if I was to do something like that, I would be that sloppy about it?”

“No, I don’t,” Frank replied. “I think I’ve convinced Internal Affairs of that, too. The point is it is definitely your gun. Do you have any idea how it ended up there? Did you ever have a gun stolen?”

Suddenly, Berry lowered his head, as though in a sudden flash of pained insight.

“The only gun I’ve ever had stolen is the one I thought Frieda took with her when she left,” he said. “I should have reported it, I know, but I just didn’t want to put the kids or me through any more hassle. It never occurred to me-Dorothy was at the house around that time. She was there several times, in fact, before I called off our relationship. Not only that, I left her in the house alone a couple of times. She was there once almost a whole day, watching the kids. I noticed it gone once while she was coming around, but in my mind, I just jumped to what I thought was the logical conclusion at the time. By then, Frieda had left and I had no idea where in the hell she was, and had no desire to go looking for her.

“Damn, what an idiot I’ve been!”

“It makes sense,” Frank said thoughtfully. “Just the same, I wanted to tell you to watch your back. You know how Internal Affairs can be when they think they might be onto something. They are going to want to go overboard getting all their damn ducks in a row.

“In fact, I might as well come out and tell you, they were here today. They were watching when Frieda came to pick up your kids. They know you went to the Catholic Church twice today, which they also consider somewhat curious. I told them you’re upset over the idea your kids might be in danger, but I don’t think they’re convinced, even though we’ve established you’re a devout catholic and a regular churchgoer.”

“And I bet they know you’re here now, right?” Berry asked, now feeling safe enough to allow the real anger he was feeling to show somewhat on the surface.

“Yeah, but they don’t know I’m telling you all this,” he said. “So keep quiet about it, all right?”

Frank was lying, Berry realized. Frank Anderson was the most above-board, by-the-book cop Berry had ever been associated with, and went out of his way to assist in any Internal Affairs investigation, feeling it was for the overall good of the police department to ferret out potentially rotten apples out of the barrel before they spoiled the entire crop. Berry knew this, but far from avoiding Frank, he went out of his way to cultivate him. He helped Frank in his efforts to improve the moral integrity of the force overall and never said or did anything that might leave his friend the impression that he was any less ethical than was Anderson himself. Now, he would almost be willing to bet his pension that Frank Anderson was wearing a wire as they spoke.

There were things Frank was not saying, and Berry knew that. Too much had happened over the course of the last four months, things that Berry always ended up in the middle of, and a lot of these things had the Moloku imprimatur, stamped on them like a maker’s mark. That would be something else he would have to explain, in time.

“Berry, are you sure there isn’t something you don’t want to tell me?” Frank asked. “I really want to help you, but if you’re holding something back, that might be impossible.”

Berry lowered his head.

“Yeah, I’ve been seeing Dorothy again,” he said. “I’ve been seeing her for the last couple of years, off and on. I haven’t been having an affair with her, though.”

“Are you sure?” Frank asked as he, almost seemingly despite himself, hunched his shoulders and lurched forward in his chair like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse.

“I’ve been seeing somebody, but not Dorothy,” Berry said. “I’ve been screwing her daughter Marnie.”

Frank whistled at this revelation and went back in his chair as though knocked backward by an unseen force.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for another beer,” Berry said as he rose and went to the kitchen. By the time that he returned, however, Frank had risen and looked at Berry with a mixture of sadness and sternness.

“James, I got to go,” he said. “Look, I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in, but I know something is going on that you’re not telling me. Personally, I believe somebody is trying to set you up to take the fall for this Moloku murder, but they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t think they had something on you that would make it easy to do that.”

“For God’s sake, Frank, I’m telling you”-

“Really, you shouldn’t tell me any more”, Frank objected. “I’ll tell you this, though. If you have any idea as to the whereabouts of Dorothy Moloku, you really should come clean on it, and if you do hear from her, at any time, you should encourage her to talk to the cops in Chicago. Yeah, they have been coming here asking questions. This looks like it might be an interstate affair, and you know what that means. That means trouble, and a hell of a lot of it, especially if it ends up implicating the Baltimore Police Department.”

Frank left the suggestion hanging in the air as he maintained a questioning gaze toward Berry, who found himself suddenly going limp.

“What was all that about out in the back a minute ago, anyway?” Frank asked. “It looked like you were talking to somebody.”

Suddenly, for just an instant, Berry found himself transposed out in the back year, and he saw once more the strangely garbed blonde haired man with the piercing green eyes, and remembered his words:

“Your hand is better, is it not? Of course it is. See, I really mean you no ill will. You have been a good friend to me, and I am of the mind that thinks a man should take good care of his friends. That is why I know I can depend on you now. Look into my eyes, and you will see what I mean.”

Berry knew then he had nothing to worry about, not from Frank, not from Marnie, not from Dorothy, and certainly not from the strange blonde haired man, who God, he now understood, sent to him in answer to his most earnest prayers for deliverance. He knew then that the man, whoever he was, could not be evil. He just seemed to be, as any avenging angel might to those who were uninformed and uninitiated. Berry rose and looked out his window, toward the bushes that waved in the breeze of a strong northeasterly wind.

“That rose bush was supposed to be a gift from me to Frieda,” he said. “I brought it for her, the day before she left me. Roses were her favorite flower. After she left, I planted it anyway. I guess in my mind, I thought it would somehow bring her back to me. Funny, ain’t it? The day she comes back here, she takes the kids, and all the roses are dead. Yeah, funny how things work out, huh?”

Frank nodded, and then lowered his head as he moved toward the door.

“Hurry back to work, James,” he finally said as he reached for the doorknob. “We miss you there. Everything will always work out for the best.”

“I should be back before too long,” Berry promised as he affected a well-practiced smile. “Remember what I said about church. The door is always open.”

“I’ll remember that,” Frank promised as he lingered just a moment in the face of the incoming cold air. “I might just finally take you up on that.”

Frank was almost out the door, but then he stopped and turned once more to face Berry.

“You know, the strangest thing,” he said. “As I walked up to you outside earlier, there in the back, I could have sworn I saw a vulture flying away.”

He shook his head, and then closed the door as he left.

Berry counted a full five minutes, and then bounded up the stairs, going into his bedroom where he hurriedly opened his closet door, where waited in a shoe-box hidden by old bills the cell phone he recently purchased under an assumed name, as he hurriedly called the number. After the third ring, he received an answer from the former Seventeenth Pulse member that went by the name of Hacksaw.

“Oh, shit, something’s up, huh?” he said. “You calling from this number do not make me feel good.”

“Yeah, Internal Affairs is what’s up, and they’re getting ready to stick a big rotten dick up all our asses. We’re going to have to call this off.”

“Too late,” Hacksaw replied. “It’s a done deal. She was good, too.”

“Did she suffer?” Berry asked in anxiety.

“Didn’t feel a thing”, he replied. “Matter of fact, she’s still got a smile on her face, last I saw. We made the video too. It’s gonna be killer shit when it’s put out. Toby thinks he’ll win an award, the numbskull. And yeah, before you ask, I did my magic. Spooky will be proud, wherever he be.”

“Hacksaw, you’re not hearing me,” Berry said in anxiety as he moved down the stairs to the living room window. Looking outside, he saw no sign of anybody.

“Is she still there?” he asked.

“Yeah, for now,” the Pulse member answered.

“Well, keep her there,” Berry demanded. “Whatever you do, do not under any circumstances bring her here, not now, not ever. Am I clear on that?”

“Oh, shit man, what in the hell are we supposed to do with her?” Hacksaw demanded.

“Hell, I don’t know, keep her on ice until I let you know,” he replied. “It shouldn’t have to be no more than two or three days, then you can dump her wherever. Just do it respectfully, all right? She was just a kid, you know.”

“Now what in the hell do you want me to do, order flowers?” Hacksaw asked in obvious exasperation. “Hell, man, this shit ain’t good. We cant’ keep her here long, and we’ve got to be damn careful where we take her, you know that.”

“Just do what I said,” Berry insisted. “Don’t bring her here, and wherever you take her, make sure you’re not followed. As my ex-wife used to always tell me when she wasn’t in the mood, sometimes you just have to improvise. Are we clear on that? Don’t fuck me, Hacksaw.”

Berry walked outside in time to see the moon waxing in a stately manner over the spot of the now dead rose bush. Maybe, he thought, the kids can return by the time it bloomed next spring, and this long nightmare will be over. He walked over to the side of it, where waited a deep hole, one deep enough and wide enough for the body that now he knew would never be there. He hurriedly removed the improvised sheet metal covering, and then he filled in the hole. Once he had it halfway filed, he picked up a handful of the rose bulbs and placed them inside, in a circle around where he then placed a cutting from the old tree, which would shoot forth with new life once the spring arrived in the company of the new addition, a continuation of its own life force.

He looked at his watch, amazed that it took him all of fifteen minutes to accomplish the work. He then walked over to the old withered branches that slept in a comatose state, warning of death, yet heralding the promise of new life.

“I’m really sorry, Frieda,” he said. “I’m really sorry it turned out this way. I guess you’re going to be alone out here for a while longer.”

The breeze blew stronger as though in response, and the cold cut through Berry like a knife. Otherwise, there was no sign of life. He looked around for the vulture, but even she deigned not to make another appearance on this dark night of the soul of Detective James Berry. He turned to walk back toward the house.

Almost as an afterthought, he turned once more toward the rose bush.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “The kids send their love.”