Modern Fantasy Series: Crooked Angels: The Bridge by Marilyn M Schulz (Women in Espionage)

Lake Union Steam Plant, Eastlake, Seattle, Washington. Built 1912. Photo by Joe Mabel

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CROOKED ANGELS

* * * * *

We are, each of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one another.

Luciano de Crescenzo

If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

An angel lost his wing, Crooked he did fly.

Emma Racine deFleur

* * * * *

CHAPTER 01 - The Bridge

Late 1990s in Seattle, USA

As she looked over the edge in the early morning light, the bottom seemed so far below that Emi Rye couldn’t tell water from rocks. Or maybe it was the absolute stillness that made everything look so much the same. But she knew they were down there—hard and unyielding—and she leaned even farther over the railing of the bridge.

They were high, the rails. Meant to stop anything but the most industrious, it seems. But if you were determined, if you meant business, then you could get the job done. Not the first time it was done here, clearly that’s why they put up such rails in the first place.

Didn’t work. The rocks won.

She heard some sort of bumping then. It was deep, yet distant and hollow, like some sort of mechanical heart. She closed her eyes and in a moment, Emi realized it must be a barrel bumping against the rocks. She opened her eyes, but it wasn't a barrel she saw there, but the body.

Not that it was really there anymore, but in her mind’s eye, the mortal remains of her best friend was still being tossed around down below.

But that was days ago—no, weeks ago. Maybe even months. Time stood still these days. Time didn’t matter now.

"It took them too long to find you," she whispered, not wanting to disturb the cool calmness in the air. It was guilt on her part, of course, because she hadn't reported Julia missing. She should have known. . . some how.

As if her own disquiet had broken the spell of stillness here, the breeze picked up, and the water began to ripple against the rocks, creating more noise and foam far below. The mechanical heart started hammering, and a car horn sounded somewhere near.

Maybe the calm had all been in her mind, frozen there in reverence as she thought of how Julia Coles had died.

This was the longest day of the year. Vernal Equinox, isn't that what they called it? But Emi had been up all night. Long days meant short nights, which would explain why she hadn't gotten much work done lately. That was a good enough reason, not that anyone was there to care. She was out of the loop these days, mostly, but that was on purpose.

She didn't see the gull, but felt it sweep close past her face. The wind of its wings made the stray hairs that had escaped from her pony tail brush away from her skin. It tickled, and she felt guilty for feeling anything at all.

It wasn’t her fault that Julia was gone. She said it there inside her noisy mind over and over again.

Another bird fluttered nearby. She didn’t bother to flinch or shoo it away. The birds had no way of knowing she wasn’t part of the bridge now, wasn’t just another pillar or post—sometimes it seemed that way.

Emi had been here like this every morning for weeks: Still as stone, looking down to the rocks that took her friend. The rocks didn't care, the rocks were tainted. So why did she insist on thinking they should feel some kind of shame?

The birds kept flying, the cars kept driving. The sun still came up everyday, and sometimes it rained anyway.

She was trying to understand how it would be for Julia down there—your only motion coming from the elements here, tossing you around like that empty barrel being tossed on the rocks. Can’t see, can’t speak, can’t move on your own, hopefully unable to feel. . .

"Dead as a rock, cold as a stone."

There was no one on earth who could convince her that Julia Coles jumped on her own. The cops put it down to the denial of a best friend, but they hadn’t known Julia since kindergarten like Emi had.

But her friend had secrets that Emi was not prepared to reveal, even now. It might jeopardize everything they had done so far—all of Julia’s work here, in fact. Besides, the cops didn’t know that Julia was afraid of heights. Emi couldn’t tell them that either, so their ignorance wasn’t really their fault.

Her boss, Caliel, and his boss too—now that was a different story. They were too quick to judgment, Emi was sure, but she wasn’t able to argue the point. Not yet. She had to get proof, and for that, she had to find out what Julia was up to.

Jehoel might understand, but what could a secretary do? No, administrative assistant, that’s what they were called now. Appropriate. Jehoel did more than file and copy and answer the phone. Jehoel was a mediator. And maybe a friend.

Did any of them know, was it even in Julia’s file, or had Julia kept it out herself because it was too much of a weakness? Fear of heights, prone to jumping, okay for field work, but only on solid ground.

When she was driving across a bridge like this, Julia never looked anywhere but straight ahead, eyes down to the lines on the road. When she was riding across, Julia closed her eyes all the way. Walking across a bridge like this would be the last thing on earth she would do, not to mention stopping to climb over the rail.

Hers was the kind of crazy that made you want to jump. Emi forgot the word for it, some kind of phobia, but it terrified them both, and Julia avoided any situation that came even close. No way would Julia die that way, it would be the last thing—

"It was the last thing she did, but she wouldn't do it for love or money, and definitely not for a man.”

Would Julia have done it for business? It was a stretch, but Emi couldn’t deny that Julia was smashed like a china-faced doll on the rocks down below.

How could no one have seen her go?

Sometimes there were no cars for long seconds, even minutes this time of day. In the early morning hours and the wavering darkness, maybe even some fog, who would notice another person walking this way? Standing, staring down, climbing over. . .

No one, it seems. Not in Seattle before their coffee anyway. Was it really all just that easy?

Emi pried the plastic lid off her own coffee and let the steam rise to warm her face. She could smell the sweet thickness and slurped up a mouthful of foam. She spit it over the rail and watched it fall. The blob didn't make it far, a gull swooped past and caught the mess in mid-flight.

"Enjoy," she said.

The gull gagged its rude reply and disappeared in the brightness of the morning rays. More things were moving now, but the sounds couldn't drowned out the noises of doubt in her mind.

Emi liked this city, and she liked this neighborhood around the bridge. It was out of the way here and close-in at the same time. It was like being a troll in a fairy tale, only the pay was better in the software business, and you didn't have to talk to anyone else except when they walked onto your own private bridge of concentration.

"Next time I die, I think it should be here."

Caliel might have something to say about that. Caliel always complained when Emi died, mostly because of the added expense. But sometimes death was the easiest exit, the quickest explanation. Caliel should know that by now.

Missing, presumed dead, body never found.

It was part of the profession these days and getting to be habit when things got too public or didn’t go the right way.

Across the expanse of water, car horns blew in a rude mechanical discussion of the morning commute. They passed across the stacked decks of the freeway, just blurs of light and sound.

Seattle was waking up.

“Some of us never went to sleep.”

The blast of the siren from too close behind made Emi spill her coffee. The stain on the sleeve of her sweater joined a few others there. She shook her hand to dry it, but grinned. It was only Oliver and Terry in their squad car, and she could see they were still laughing at her.

Emi didn't like their jokes much.

Cops. Pigs. Heat. Emi knew all the names. To some, the work was a calling, to others it was just a job. They were people, like anyone else, only maybe more noble than most.

Maybe not.

Emi nodded in greeting as they got out.

"Officer Oliver," she said. "Sergeant Terry."

They were still snickering. Their work shift was nearly over, Emi knew. Oliver moseyed out and stretched. Terry slid out and lit up a cigarette. Emi liked the way Terry did it, like she was a screen star from the Forties and adored in everything she did in real life as much as in film fantasy.

Emi studied their familiar faces. Oliver looked tired. Terry looked bored.

"Where did they take the body?" Emi asked. It had taken her this long to work up the nerve. At least to do it without crying.

"Buried somewhere, or maybe to the oven, I suppose," Terry said as she blew out her smoky breath.

She meant the crematorium.

Emi thought the smoke part was overdone, but Oliver laughed. He knew it was meant to be a pun—a bad one.

"No one claimed it," he said.

He didn't have to add: "Why didn't you?"

It. The body. Her friend. They knew just exactly what—who—she was talking about.

Why didn’t I? Emi wondered that herself.

Terry glanced at her watch, then back to Oliver. He shot her with his index finger and winked. She smiled, showing her star-class dimples. Emi had a terrible envy of those dimples, and she liked the two officers in general.

Seattle's finest. Seattle's thin blue line.

Police officers. Partners. Lovers?

No, Emi decided. Oliver was too paunchy, and Terry was too pretty. As a team, they were too good to be lovers, now or has-been. Lovers never got along for this long at a time, Emi thought. But it had only been weeks since she met them, and Emi had to admit she'd been wrong about people before.

Like the jumper formerly known as her best friend, Julia Coles. But they got separated by distance and interest in their own careers, not by purposeful neglect. Emi had been out of the country for awhile. Too long, it seems to help identify Julia, not that there was much left of her face after the water and rocks and crabs had their say.

But the cops didn’t have that kind of history, nothing to make it personal, so they just called Julia: "the jumper." Emi looked it up in the official records, just to see what they had written. It gave her an idea of the thoroughness and efficiency of the Seattle cops. She had no complaints.

Caliel had been furious, but Emi couldn't help it. She told him it was ordinary professional practice, just being thorough herself, not snooping at all like he thought. Not everyone could get into government system archives, most people didn’t even try these days.

Especially into the locals like the city of Seattle. But you could find all kinds of interesting things there. Caliel never appreciated details like that and had never been interested in tea and sympathy in any case—it cut into production time. But Caliel was not only Julia’s boss before, he was now Emi’s boss as well. He was also a first-class son-of-a-bitch, and was taking the cops’ report on what happened to Julia as gospel.

Emi told him he was an idiot, and that’s why she was on leave. Well, part of the reason.

The official records said that the jumper, a woman later identified as Julia Coles, had been a stranger in town, only here to meet face-to-face with a man she met on the Internet. E-mails and chat-rooms, self-promoting web pages: electronic correspondence was less personal than handwriting, less revealing than voices. The police figured the woman was lonely and came to meet her Romeo.

Get it, Romeo and Julia.

Not funny. A cop wouldn’t know a good pun if it shot them in the foot.

But the frog, formerly known as Internet-prince, had warts in the guise of another girlfriend. Quite an exotic beauty too, by all reports. That's when the woman, formerly known as Julia, became the jumper, committing suicide in a fit of disappointed despondency.

A sad story. A false story. Emi didn't want to think there was anyone that lonely in the world.

Anyone else, that is.

"What are you thinking about so hard over there?" Oliver said.

"She wouldn't have jumped," Emi said.

"So you said, over and over again. But you also said you weren’t here then. You said you couldn’t have seen anything," Terry said, showing too much interest.

Terry may look like a sultry screen siren, Emi thought, but she was still a cop on the inside. That's why Emi didn't hate her. This work was a calling with Terry, and Emi had respect for that.

So what if a woman with looks used it to advantage? Guys did that same sort of thing all the time, only they did it by letting a prospective business partner win on the golf-course or by getting their visiting colleagues a hooker when they came to town for a business trip.

The cops were still waiting.

"I see her in my mind's eye," Emi tried to explain.

True enough.

"In a pig's eye, you mean," Terry said. "I think you know something."

"What difference does it make?" Emi said. "The case is closed."

"Homicides are never closed until they are finished," Terry said.

Good call, Emi thought. Maybe they were finally starting to see things her way.

“Finished meaning solved or finished as in forgotten?” Oliver said.

Maybe not.

"Besides, it was ruled a suicide," Oliver reminded.

"But you know differently?" Terry said to Emi, taking a closer step.

Emi sighed. "I don't know anything anymore. Maybe, I never did."

Terry didn't look away, and Emi didn't want to look away either. But she didn't want to keep staring back to prove a point. Her nose itched, and she wanted to yawn. Fidgeting was Hell on your credibility.

"Traffic is picking up, you better get home," Oliver said. "I don't like pedestrians on the bridge in rush hour, or anytime really, that's just begging for trouble."

Terry grunted, then flicked her cigarette butt out to sea. They all watched the trajectory, Terry was a pro when it came to that kind of litter. The gull came out of nowhere and caught the glowing butt in midair. But the cigarette was still lit, and the gull dropped it with a strangled cry.

Terry laughed.

"That was mean," Emi said.

Oliver said, "Serves it right for smoking. It looks like rain. Come on, we'll take you home."

Out of habit, he added to his partner, "You got a problem with that?"

"No problem, shift ended three minutes ago," Terry said. She loosened her tight knot of strawberry blonde hair and shook it free around her shoulders.

Oliver opened the back door of the squad car. "Your carriage awaits, Ma’am."

Emi eased in and immediately closed her eyes, trying not to think about who or what made that smell. It didn't do to ask unless you really wanted to know. She didn't. But there was something else . . .

"I forgot my—"

She stopped, because Oliver already had her string-reinforced plastic bag that used to hold oranges and was now lined with part of a pillow case. It served as Emi’s purse. It was huge and worn-orange-colored with big purple letters and quite ugly. No one would think to steal a thing like that.

"Another pound or two and you could qualify as a bag lady," he said. "What's in here anyway?"

He swung it into the seat beside her and slammed the car door. No escape from there now.

She said, "Just the usual stuff, you want to see?”

“Define usual,” Terry commanded.

“A deck of Tarot cards, but there might be a few cards missing, a gun with an extra bullet clip, short range high-tech surveillance equipment, a squeeze jug of sweet hot mustard, a few paper towels because tissue is seldom up to the job. Candy, of course, and I guess there’s probably some of the usual other junk I’ve forgotten about, you know how it is."

“A few cards missing, short of a full deck. That explains a few things.” Terry slumped into the driver's seat and fastened her seat belt as she said to Oliver, "Translation, none of your business. Never ask a woman that question unless you want a smart-ass response."

"Right, right," Oliver said. "Let's just go. I gotta pee."

"That coffee smells good," Terry said. "What is it?"

"Just Columbian and cow." Emi was too confused by all the exotic coffee choices in Seattle. She stuck with skim milk and the plain, roasted beans that you could get anywhere back in her parents’ day. Of course, people got their coffee then in a restaurant or in a can from the grocery store, not on every other street corner café.

"I hate latté this early," Terry said. “Too diluted.”

"I need some coffee though," Oliver said.

“I thought you had to pee.”

“What goes in, must come out.” Then he laughed which only made it worse.

They pulled off the bridge, down a few blocks, and into the nearest Jitters drive-through. The cops ordered triple tall espressos, and Emi could smell the battery-acid-strength even over the rancid smells from her back seat.

It made her sneeze.

A phone sounded. Oliver said, “That’s my wife, don’t take it.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” Terry said. “Why she calling me, she checking up on you again?”

“Yeah, we had another round, don’t get me started.”

Terry wasn’t planning on that either. Instead, she said, “Why don’t you carry a phone?”

She was looking in the rearview mirror at her, so no way Emi could dodge this again.

Because they can track you, find you, bomb you.

But she said, "Got too expensive because I kept losing them, or breaking them, or—“

Oliver said with the wisdom of a husband and a father, ”It’s that bag, you need a carrier or a real purse, or even a pack—“

”I’d just lose that too, believe me. Or worse, somebody would steal it, and there goes all my stuff.”

They didn’t respond, it wasn’t much of an argument, and they didn’t put up much of a resistance. The cops already got the picture: Emi was not competent with anything sharp or expensive, so to them it didn't seem much of a reach: no cell phone, probably not many credit cards, nothing like that.

She didn't know whether to take offense, but in the end, she didn't have time because of what was up ahead. They didn’t seem to know what was coming, they didn’t have her sixth-sense about stuff like that. Part of it was training, she knew, but the other part was natural. That’s why she had been recruited, after all.

But they would figure it out in a bit, and besides, she didn’t want to give herself away. Her flightiness of late was fake. . . most of it anyway.

As they waited at a stop signal, a man in a ski mask ran down the sidewalk and yanked at an old lady as she was crawling into her parked car. The old woman had coffee and a box of little donuts. All of them went flying.

Powdered sugar, what a shame.

Instantly Oliver grabbed both of their cups, and Terry took pursuit. The old woman already had help, and as they drove past, Emi saw the woman’s putty white legs over the top of rolled-down nylon stockings. Even from there she could see the blue veins.

She pulled her own long skirt down.

But the cops seemed to have forgotten she was there. Oliver switched on the siren, and Emi heard him try to call in on the radio, but it didn't seem to work. He slammed his hand against the dash, and their high-tech terminal blinked twice and died.

He swore.

"Did you get the license plate?" Terry said.

Emi opened one eye.

"I got it, but I can't get through," Oliver said. "This damned thing is broke again."

He switched off the terminal and flipped it back on again, then painfully typed as the patrol car dashed in pursuit. This time, the terminal came alive at the same time the radio roared into full-blast static. Oliver reached to turn it down and spilled hot coffee in his crotch.

What followed wasn’t pleasant, but predictable, and Emi slid down into the seat and hoped they’d continue to forget about her.

She was tossed as they chased, and her nose came much too close to the source of the foul smell. Now she knew what it was. She was relieved and repulsed at once. Emi turned Oliver's old tennis shoes upside down, and tossed the old towel over the top.

That helped, but in the mean time, they had lost the perpetrator. They cruised around the blocks, listening to the police radio and the other units still in pursuit, unable to contribute themselves.

In a moment it stopped, it was quiet. Then there came all sorts of noise.

"What happened?" Terry asked.

Oliver shrugged.

"He ran into a bus," a voice finally scratched on the radio.

"Jeez, I hope nobody got hurt," Oliver said.

"Did it explode?" Emi demanded, sitting straight up.

Oliver jumped, startled, then flinched.

Terry looked at her in the rearview mirror with angry eyes. "Damn," she said, and stomped on the brakes.

It seemed they remembered her now.

No one said another word, but in a moment, the police cruiser was turned around and heading back toward Emi's home turf. They drove past the fire truck now giving the old woman medical aid. There was another patrol car there too.

They made it to the main arterial and back to the bridge. Past that, they drove off onto a part-dirt road that used to be paved, but now it was just an alley of broken surface. The chunks of asphalt were only bumps now, lying in wait to hide the pot holes. After trying one last time to drink without pain, Oliver dumped the cups out the window.

"Hey, that's littering," Emi said.

"Who would notice around here?" Oliver said. "This isn't such a nice neighborhood, those cups are probably the best looking thing."

Emi looked back, the cups had disappeared in the debris and the weeds. She couldn't tell them from anything else.

"I notice. Trash up your own neighborhood," Emi said.

"You don't like it, call a cop," Terry said, and the cops laughed at that.

The road wound around to a U-shaped building that was now just a set of dustpan apartments rented by the week or the month, but it was the Lake View Motel in a former life. The doors had been painted Easter-Egg colors decades ago when it used to be a tourist trap for the World's Fair in 1962.

Now the area was full of aging warehouses and new storage units, parts of old ships and rusting metal contraptions that had something to do with the shipping locks or the gasworks or nobody-knows-anymore. Some of the houses were old and run down, some were just old, and the retired men and women who finally owned their own homes tended them with loving care.

Emi was home too—as much as any place could be.

As the cops drove away, Emi recited the key sequence that had been running in her head. It was the sequence Oliver had typed to log into the police computer terminal. She had also seen his password. She pulled a card from her Tarot deck and coded the information there with a purple-ink pen that looked innocent enough. But she watched for a moment as the data then disappeared from what she had just written.

Magic, sort of. Actually, more like spy technology, but archaic. Simple usually worked though, because people were looking for something more sophisticated these days.

“Ah, the classics.”

She turned the card back over again.

The Seven of Swords: the Thief, a Trickster, an impulsive lone wolf.

“How appropriate.”

The card might mean sneaky, deceptive, often trying to accomplish too much and as a result, everything so hopefully gained might be compromised instead. It takes nerve to steal from someone who could punish you. Cunning and confidence, some guile too. But also gullible, perhaps too trusting of someone you shouldn’t.

In a favorable reading, the card might also mean that the sacrifices made will allow you to move ahead.

Emi forgot what it meant in an unfavorable reading.

“How convenient.”

Ah yes. Impulse, frustration, possible failure. Indecision.

In another life, Emi might have remembered the codes in her head, but now she had too much else on her mind. Besides, things hadn’t worked quite the same way in her head since they killed her in Phoenix.

Top

Gas Works Park, Seattle, Washington. Photo by Joe Mabel

* * * * *

CHAPTER 02 - The Lake View

Emi stared at the Easter egg colors on the doors of the old motel and was glad the dust now covered what age hadn't faded. She lived in one of the units previously known as aquamarine (not her favorite), but that wasn't the only identifying feature. There was the newly-built flower bed made out of perlite-potting soil and cinder blocks just outside her door.

The flower bed sloped to one side and came out crooked from the foundation, but it was hard to tell if the old building was at fault or the new construction. Inside were a few new flowers she had just planted there. Emi took a deep breath, but the scent of the blooms was smothered by someone frying bacon nearby. There was fresh coffee too and burnt toast.

Then a sun ray touched her face, and for some reason, it made her happy for the first time in months. A smile came unbidden, and tears stung her eyes.

Strange. . .

She sniffed and leaned over to touch a flower with her fingertips. It was cool and delicate with a drop of dew. The flowers were the only freshness around here. Gold and deep purple, yellow and rust—all nestled in their fresh green leaves, surrounded by dark potting soil and white perlite-specks, still damp from her watering last night.

It must be the flowers, she decided. They made happy little greeters with their velvety almost-faces like tiny little pansies. Her grandma would call them Johnny-Jump-Ups. The sign in the store called them violas.

Emi didn't want to go inside yet. She stepped into the courtyard and looked back at her home. The Lake View motel was only one story, a tawdry affair with a newer green tin roof covering fifteen units, including the superintendent's apartment. The units were one or two bedrooms, first furnished sparsely years ago and then left completely alone to fester.

Emi frowned at the weed and the suspicious mound in the corner of her little garden. One was a volunteer, the other an even more unwelcome gift from Joecat, everybody's neighborhood stray. Of course, some people here called her the same thing—a stray, that is, not what was underneath the little mound. At least, not to her face.

She pulled the weed, then felt strangely sad, and thought to plant it again. Shouldn’t be rude to a guest, even an unwelcome one.

Emi had a bigger and better garden at her house in Phoenix, but not so fresh and pretty as this one. It was hard to keep things watered and green in the desert, especially since she traveled a bit and worked all the time in between.

She had yuccas there and cactus too, dry-silvery grasses, and succulents—like stonecrop and split rock, donkey tail and lemon ball, owls eyes and plover eggs, baby toes and chalk rose—some with infrequent, but quite pretty blooms. She loved the sight and sound of them.

But that was over now. Emi died in Phoenix. It wasn't her plan, but someone else’s idea of cover. Disappear and start all over again. Sometimes these things just had to happen that way.

It wasn't life there anyway, it was camouflage. That's what Caliel had said often enough. But after being here in Seattle in so much green foliage and blue water, she'd never go back there again.

Not to stay, anyway.

Caliel supposedly made it up to her by giving her an extended vacation. What had he called it? Furlough, authorized absence, afterlife? Not much of a joke, her boss had a twisted sense of humor. But a leave of absence, just to make up for giving up all of her things and what passed as her friends?

Not much else to leave behind then.

Not much satisfaction now either. The time in between assignments had been more than boring, but that was her own lack of imagination where real life was concerned. Still, this was better than sitting in some office, especially when Emi began reconnecting with Julia Coles again.

Some things were just the same between them, but parts of Julia were a mystery, even to Emi. It had always been like that. There were layers there, and it was like Julia purposely kept them hidden behind a veil of sorts. But that shadowy self was balanced by a warmth and patience with other people’s failings.

“Especially mine.”

But even as she kept much of herself hidden, Julia gave the rest to others totally, reaching out and bonding in a way that Emi had come to envy. Put simply, people trusted Julia. Emi knew if she had that gift herself, she would have made a better spy.

But Julia’s depth and intuition could not save her, and Emi had to wonder just what kind of power her friend had met. Was it someone else, or something inside herself?

Emi had to admit that even though she’d know her friend for most of her life, there were parts of Julia that Emi still could not predict. And if life were the Tarot deck, Julia was the High Priestess. At least, that’s how Emi preferred to remember her friend.

“Nothing like me.”

They weren't in the same line of work now, though they had first started out that way. That was almost ten years ago. Funny that the High Priestess was one of the cards missing from Emi’s deck. Emi didn’t bother to wonder if that really meant anything.

Just coincidence—no, really.

But Emi was too chicken to take particular note of which other cards were gone. You could read all kinds of things into that, especially since she didn’t know why they were missing.

Emi looked around at her neighbors' windows. They faced each other over the small court yard, five units on three sides. The corner units were bigger than the other ones, sort of ground-level, dirt-bound penthouses of the Lake View. She had a warped sense of humor too.

The owner lived in one. The other one was empty much of the time, but sometimes it was filled with women and children, but never any men.

Emi suspected that the owner let them use it as a favor to some church group who took in their own kind of strays. Battered women, they called them. Emi avoided all of them anyway. Kids ask a lot of questions, and women who looked beaten would just make her mad.

Nobody else seemed to be awake now except Mrs. Firsthill, the breakfast maker, the owner.

The old woman also had a garden of sorts in the courtyard, with small rows neatly tended and waiting for vegetables to be planted very soon. It seems it was an annual affair here at the Lake View, and Emi, the newest tenant, was going to be this year’s honored guest.

Of course, that really meant she was obligated to buy the brew, but Emi didn't mind. She enjoyed seeing people interact. In fact, she found it fascinating, always had. Maybe that’s how she got into this line of work.

Nosy? No, just curious. Not the same thing. And not just about what others were doing, but why. It was a perfect mentality to become a spy. Not that she was really that. Not anymore. Never had been, not really. Deny-ability was ingrained in everything they did. But they’d never admit it. Besides, was that even a word?

She took another deep breath.

Mrs. Firsthill made a hearty breakfast every morning, Emi knew, even though Mr. Firsthill had been dead for years. It gave her a reason to get up everyday, the woman claimed. Mrs. Firsthill was loving and motherly, though had no children she cared to talk about. But she was the kind of woman who was soft on the outside only. If you threatened what she cared about, Emi figured the woman might quickly turn hard as stone.

She hoped she was right, she might have to count on that.

Most of the food was passed onto others in the Lake View. It was hard to break habits made through years of love. And while some people came and went here, many of the tenants had been residents for a long time.

It was only polite to share with the old woman too whenever someone brought home take-out food. It all seemed to work out in the end, and Mrs. Firsthill managed not to starve to death feeding all her neighbors on her fixed income and low-rent supplements.

At the super's unit, a moth flapped around one of the dusty yard lights. The fixture was what Mrs. Firsthill lovingly called a “jelly jar.” It reminded Emi of something a farm wife would say, but she never asked Mrs. Firsthill where she had come from, in case the old woman would ask Emi the same.

The light snapped off as the sunlight struck it. The moth lit for a moment, then slid away.

"I wonder where they go?"

A moment later, Emi saw a gull land on the roof and gobble something down. A dog barked, then another in response.

Somebody's car backfired. Or maybe it's a gunshot, she thought. Sometimes it's hard to tell around here.

"This isn't such a nice neighborhood," she said, in Officer Terry's deep, sultry voice.

Officer Terry was the Queen of Wands, Emi had decided: a fiery sunflower of great passion—charming, but also elusive. A woman like her knew what she wanted in this life, and not much could sway her from her goals. It would make her a good cop, Emi thought.

But then, Officer Terry was probably good at whatever she did. She wouldn’t make a good spy though. Officer Terry liked to be the center of attention, and she wasn’t sneaky enough. A spy should blend in, fade away, creep around.

Become part of the bridge.

But what about her partner? He looked like a military man, long past, but a thing like that never let go. Once a Marine, always a Marine. To Emi, Officer Oliver was more like the Knight of Coins. Stubborn, hard-working, maybe not so serious as set in his ways. Not ambitious, a born follower, but a family man who would have to make an unpleasant choice some day—one he hadn’t figured perhaps.

A door opened nearby.

She wasn't ready for any more social obligations, the morning meeting with the cops was already too much contact with human beings—and too much excitement with the car chase, as well. She was more of a cerebral person now, more thinking than acting these days. Besides, she hated chasing perps when she couldn’t use a gun herself.

Emi rushed inside. As she leaned back against the door, she could still hear the number three swinging outside. Her apartment was number thirteen, but the three was missing a screw and swung upside down most of the time. Somebody usually straightened it during the day. It was supposed to be a way to draw out your bad luck and pass it back to the contrary thirteen. But it never seemed to last, not for the people who lived here, and Emi grew to expect the gentle scraping back and forth whenever the door moved. It was sort of a very quiet alarm.

She checked the apartment, but everything was the same as when she had left. She never locked up, there was no need. The furniture was bolted down, the old television wasn't new enough to be valuable, and no one would steal something that old-fashioned: It didn’t even have a remote. Anything else that she had added herself was cheap or disposable.

Anything obvious anyway.

Besides, locking the door was an advertisement. Somehow, when you locked your door, they knew you had something to steal. Thieves were like sea gulls that way. They always seemed to know when something might be interesting, but they were often disappointed. Gulls just squawked and flew away, but robbers were different.

She wasn't about to make any of them mad, because it also made some of them mean.

"Like the guy who stole that old lady's car."

Maybe he didn't mean to hit the bus. Or maybe he knew that he’d soon be caught, and so did it for spite. Maybe he was dead, and they might never know. If he was dead, she wondered if it had hurt. When she died, it hurt sometimes, but other times, it had been enough of a relief that she didn't mind the discomfort.

Eventually, it always felt like flying. Like her body had no weight at all, and her arms and legs were wings carrying her into the cool clear air to. . .

To somewhere she didn’t know, because she never really ever got there.

Not to Heaven, in any case.

More like someplace like north Africa (hot as Hell) or South America (bugs and snakes and malaria), or Phoenix.

It always had to look good though, passing on, but jumping was the worst. Jumping wasn’t flying at all. It was falling, and it gave you too much time to reconsider before you hit—she hated jumping.

So did Julia. But for another reason. They still had that much in common, even with Julia dead.

Dead for real—not for the fastest, cleanest escape, and not just to start over again.

Emi flipped on the television on her way through the motel room-turned-apartment. It took a few minutes to warm up. News: national, 24-hours-a-day. She was a junkie that way, and not the only one here when it came to TV.

Mrs. Firsthill was going deaf, but she liked to hear her television from anywhere, including the bathtub and the courtyard too. Emi found some local news to match Mrs. Firsthill's voices so there wouldn’t be so much babble.

They had film of the bus-car collision, obviously taken from a helicopter. Vultures to the kill, she thought, and went to the kitchenette. She put on water for orange-rind tea, then changed the channel to old comedy reruns. But she had to turn the volume up to drown out Mrs. Firsthill's voices. Emi ignored the neighbors with the purple door on the other side who started banging on the wall.

Purple people eater. . . why had that come to mind. Something from their childhood perhaps, hers and Julia Coles. Emi frowned.

It was time they got up anyway, she thought, they're missing a beautiful day. They would thank her for it later. She laughed and jumped up to attend the screaming teapot. She didn’t really like tea, but she loved the smell.

Emi held her face over the steam and wished she had cinnamon—no, she was thinking of cloves. Those oranges encrusted all over with cloves and hung in the closet for a long time during the holidays until they were hard and shriveled and small. What did they call them? Pomanders?

“Sounds like a spy name, that. Pomander, James Pomander.” Why did pretending to be a spy always come out with an English accent?

Emi could hear them arguing now, the two boys next door. Not really boys, they just sounded younger than their years because they were so much in love. Harrison was a mechanic, Denny was a starving artist, and they had been together since high school, about five years ago, she guessed.

Harrison always swore about Emi and her noisy habits—along with everyone else’s. She didn’t take it personally, and to her face he was pleasant enough. Denny usually cooed over the beautiful sunrise, the pretty flowers, the cuddly cat that came to visit, sometimes with something dead in its mouth. Adorable.

Denny saw the big picture, and Harrison sweated the details. They were a perfect couple for all that the world had to throw their way—and like everyone else here at the Lake View, it tossed them a lot of crap.

Emi's cuckoo clock chimed. The stick came out of the ornate door over and over, but the bird that used to be on it was long gone. That’s why she got it so cheap. Well, for free actually—someone had tossed it out, and she had to fix it up a bit.

It was something o'clock sharp, but not the right time zone, not Pacific time, that is. It was set for someplace else.

Still, it was time to get on with the day—and what she’d been putting off for quite awhile now.

She went to the small closet between the kitchenette and the bathroom—the only closet in the place except the small hole-like place without a door in the bedroom. She never went in that one though, only stacked her boxes and bags in there, and things she found around that might be interesting some day.

Emi had left most of her stuff in Phoenix, but it just felt safer knowing that whatever lived there in that strange little cutout in the wall in her bedroom now had obstacles to conquer in order to make its way out.

As she opened the folding door of the closet here and pulled the curtain-made-out-of-a-beach-towel aside at the back, her computer monitor came to life. There was also a separate motion detector she had just hooked up, and she was glad to see that it worked. It flashed a message about dialing emergency services, and she heard the secure modem engage.

It might appear primitive by the state of technology these days, but sometimes that was the best way to go. People didn’t bother breaking into ratty old cars, or houses in slums whose the most expensive investment was the locks on their doors, or old computer systems like this. Such systems weren’t used for anything critical or important.

Obsolete, that was the term, and it was meant to dial the emergency line—but nothing the Feds (or anyone like them) could track or trace. Instead, it went to the local cops, the most likely to respond in a predictable way.

The trip signal had worked as intended, but she quickly shut it down. It was only a test for unexpected access, but if needed, it would have played a recording of her final cry for help.

Yet another death for Emi Rye. . .

She pulled out the folding chair and brought up the Internet browser. It beeped—annoying new feature—but she had mail, it seems. It was from Simon. He was the reason Julia came here to Seattle, and now one of the reasons Emi was here too.

Emi read the terse note three times at least.

In fact, she had to read it that many times to read between the lines. He was away on business. He had a software project review today. It might last through tomorrow, he wrote. That was a good sign, good for business, but hard on the psyche.

"Simon," she whispered, "you're a strange one by nature. I can’t quite figure you out."

In the Tarot, she hadn’t decided if he was the Hermit, the Fool, or the World.

The Fool sets everything else in motion. But for wisdom to emerge, there can be no distractions.

Simon Greenlake was certainly an expert on turning the world off, ridding himself of distractions, becoming a Hermit, in fact.

But he was thorough in his work. He would travel every path that might get him to success. He might not control the universe now, but he was well on his way to controlling the computing world.

Maybe he had some aspects of each of those cards, but she was no expert, maybe she’d ask someone who knew more about that than her. Normally, she’d just ask Julia—

Now that wasn’t an option. Emi had to find other means, other resources, someone else to ask. About the cards, that is, everthing else was off limits. That made it tricky, because lately her work wasn’t so healthy for security assets. Including herself.

She had yet to find someone in her snooping—her research—that knew Simon Greenlake at all. No family, no friends, no colleagues. He had covered his tracks, perhaps for privacy, or maybe someone had done it for him—and for some other reason.

Maybe Lily Seung, but Emi was not about to show her hand to that woman yet. Besides, Lily Seung knew how these games were played, and she’d have covered her tracks and left a false trail in her wake.

After all, Lily Seung was the Moon: illusive, deceptive, but with no light of its own. When the Moon showed up, figure things are not as they seem. But how could Emi tell the cops something like that?

Crime busting by way of the Tarot deck, not to mention matters of national security? She wasn’t a fortune teller, not a Gypsy or a witch or a psychic. It was just a way of organizing her thoughts these days, but she couldn’t tell them that either. Caliel already suspected that something was wrong, that was bad enough.

No, she had to do this her way, and she’d use anything thing that could help. Right now that was spy-kits for kids and the Tarot deck, and holding up in the Lake View motel.

She didn’t even know if Lily Seung had come here before or after Julia. Perhaps it didn’t matter, but if Lily Seung was the reason Julia came here. . . Well, that changed the way Emi needed to look at things.

The Moon, no light of her own.

The woman had been a rising star in the repressive regime, but in countries like that, women could only go so far. A woman could get more information from the bedroom than the boardroom too, but that was true anywhere.

For whatever reason, Lily Seung was now for sale to the highest bidder. But who was she working for these days? Maybe her old allies, maybe Simon himself, maybe more than one entity. Emi had to find out that much, at least, to have any of this make sense to Caliel.

Or maybe Lily Seung was working for herself. Maybe she figured a long term plan that included Simon Greenlake would fit in better with her long term health. Emi was betting Lily Seung didn’t like dying either.

She read the e-mail from Simon again.

All he needs is a good, supportive woman, she thought.

"All he needs is someone like Julia," she said, then frowned. “Or someone like me.”

Of course, he didn't know it yet, but he'd figure it out when he had the time. He had a lot of distractions these days, but he hadn’t changed his habits much, which means that he must have liked it that way.

Women all over the world started sending him e-mails when he was written up in an article in a popular women’s magazine about the most-eligible bachelors who had potential to make billions (because nobody really cared about millions anymore). It wasn’t hard to figure out his e-mail address, at least for women who had something in common with him: computers.

Some came with marriage proposals, some were strictly business propositions, and some would just send pictures, she knew. Men are primal that way: They liked what they saw or they didn’t, so why bother with anything else.

But lately it was all business with Julia, and now with her. She wasn’t exactly sure that he knew the difference, because she knew for a fact that Simon and Julia hadn’t met face to face, and Simon never watched the news.

That was a fine point she hadn’t brought up with Caliel either. But that was the old mission, this was something else, and so none of Caliel’s business. It was a fine line she was walking, but nothing new there, given her own line of work. Besides, she was on leave, and Caliel couldn’t blame her for that, because it was his idea.

Emi hoped Simon wouldn't chew his fingernails in front of the corporate officers during his presentation. She pictured his nervous pacing, the careful choice of words, the nervous stains under the arms of his ill-fitting dress shirt. His tie would be crooked and way out of style and tied like a little kid’s. She’d never seen him up close either, but she had seen plenty of video. Julia really was quite thorough.

But he would convince them. Simon Greenlake was inarticulate, but arrogant—she could tell by his writing too. It was impressive in its own way and showed a forceful focus that few people had these days. That's what would convince them, not his personality or his presentation, but his shear confidence in his own competence and what he was going to accomplish.

She knew it, because she knew his movements and his habits. She knew what he ate for dinner and breakfast most days, and that he skipped lunch most of the time—not by choice, but because he forgot to eat. His biggest security weakness, in fact, was that he was a creature of habit. She knew his every move, where he shopped for groceries, what soap he used—when he remembered to wash at all. And she liked to think that she knew his thoughts as well as anyone.

His mind was brilliant, but the rest of him needed work. Someday, she would tell him to his face. But right now, she needed more time, and that meant contacting Caliel. . . stalling Caliel.

But suddenly Emi had a strange feeling she had forgotten something.

Her tea.

She looked to the kitchenette, the cup had stopped steaming. Was that all, she wondered, or was there something more she was missing?

"Maybe I'm just nervous about calling in."

No, that wasn't it. She had a tingling at the back of her neck and turned in her chair to look to the sliding glass patio doors. Not that there was a patio, more like a small concrete slab fringed by a thin line of dead grass and gravel farther on.

There was also a nail six inches in on the runner rail, the glass door only opened that far. It was the gift from the super, and Emi took the warning as gospel after scrubbing the chalk outline of the corpse of the previous tenant from the old matted brown carpet of her apartment.

She was right though: Someone was watching her.

It was Joecat. She jumped up and let him in. The large tan and white tom cat sauntered in with his tail up high.

"Hello. Did you have a good night on the town, or was the moon still too distracting?" she asked.

Joecat sat in the middle of her floor and started licking his lips. Must have already had his breakfast. Then he went on to lick more personal things, and Emi turned back to the computer.

There was a flashing icon there waiting now. It was a new message from Caliel.

“Speak of the Devil,” she whispered.

Joecat shifted, started licking other places. Fascinating, what stretch.

Caliel would never initiate contact under usual circumstances. He was too busy to make friendly with a supposedly-passed-on spy. Unless he had another assignment for her, like something more pressing had some up. But it was still way before the promised date. Any other time, she would have been relieved, but she still hadn’t finished here with her own business.

"This must be serious," Emi mumbled and frowned.

Then she promptly avoided the contact. She checked on the orange-rind tea. It was lukewarm, more stale than enticing now. Not appetizing at all. Maybe she’d use it to rinse her hair. Or maybe that would make it smell like garbage too. She got a mind-flash of gulls diving on her head.

Maybe not. She dumped it down the sink.

From the small mirror across the room, she could still see the flashing icon. Joecat jumped up onto the folding chair in front of the computer, turned round and round, and them plopped down onto the cracked plastic cushion. He was perfectly round and quite comfortable there, clearly not planning on moving soon.

She said, “Thanks for handling that, Joe.” Emi reached and swept the curtain in back, covering the high-tech equipment again.

The cat managed to swat at her as she moved away. She turned back, but he was in position again, guarding the place with his eyes closed, but ears twitching anyway.

Then Emi went to take a bath. Running water was comforting, even though once she drowned. She didn’t blame the water then, and that was a long time ago. When she was a kid, in fact. Her father had brought her back— resuscitated, that was the word.

This wasn’t like that. A bath would give her more time to think as to what to do next.

Top

Center for Wooden Boats and behind that Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington, beneath the bowsprit of the schooner Wawona, Northwest Seaport. Photo by Joe Mabel

* * * * *

CHAPTER 03 - The Cops

Terry was writing the daily report as Oliver explained the problem to the vehicle maintenance grunt.

"Look," Oliver said, "it just blinked a time or two, then went blank. It does it all the time."

Of course, it wasn’t doing it now.

There weren't many people in the police garage, the shift had been over for almost an hour. People had already come and gone here, or were already about their business. Oliver and Terry were late. They weren't on overtime, it was professionalism that made them stay.

And stubbornness. They had a bet on the cause of the problem. Oliver said it was from the car's loose wiring. Terry said it was from Oliver's big blunt fingers.

"Terry, Oliver," someone called from the door of the stairwell. The names echoed back in the concrete cave, but it was a friendly, welcoming sound.

"Duncan," they all called back, including the maintenance grunt.

Duncan Fairview hadn't been a detective sergeant long enough to change their familiarity. It was fine by him. He came walking up, still eating his morning donut.

"Heard you guys had a keeper," he said, licking his fingers.

"They had him dead bang, then they lost him again," said the maintenance grunt. "They blame the machine."

"Dead bang? Too many movies, dude. And this from a geek with greasy glasses who never leaves the garage. It was the computer," Oliver said. "We couldn't track the guy because we couldn't get position from the grid."

It wasn't unusual for the local law enforcement and emergency-aid agencies to call into the bus tracking system to help find perpetrators. Bus routes covered the area like a spider's web, and both the cops and the buses came from public funding: They had an understanding, even if sometimes it was informal to most of them.

Bus drivers know a lot about what goes around, and some listened in some of the time too. They helped the cops whenever they could. It was police work from a safe distance, and it had its appeal to them, because bus drivers could very easily be in danger. Sometimes they got attacked, once or twice even killed. They expected support from the cops in return. . . and they got it.

"Turns out a bus driver did see him, only not soon enough to avoid getting hit," Oliver said. "I figure it was the computer's fault that we lost him. Either that, or Terry's driving. Which would you pick?"

They all looked at Terry, but she was taking no offense, she was barely listening, which meant the notion wasn't worth a rebuttal. Terry didn't take any garbage from anybody, and her non-reaction was good enough for them.

It wasn't Terry's driving.

"What's wrong with your terminal?" Duncan said.

"The terminal's fine, it's the users, they're the flaky kind," the maintenance grunt said over his clip board.

Terry set her report down and gave the man a wink.

He blushed and shuffled back and forth between his suddenly-awkward feet.

"I'll take a look at it if I have time," he said. "I mean, when I have time, I'll give it a good look, don’t worry."

He pushed up his glasses and stood grinning at her.

Terry turned to Duncan, give him a wink and a tip of her head, then started walking toward the garage entrance.

"What do you know about the suicide?" she said.

"You think it was suicide?" Duncan said, walking beside.

"Not the guy who hit the bus," Oliver said from nearby. "She means the one off the bridge a few weeks ago."

"The woman from Phoenix," Terry said.

"Why was she here, and why did she jump, you mean?" Duncan said.

"I thought we already told this story, Terry?" Oliver said. "You're letting that space cadet on the bridge get into your head. Once a hippie, always a hippie."

Then he rubbed his neck, he'd had enough for one night. "I have to get home before the kids leave for school."

He waved goodbye and went to his car. In a moment, Oliver was gone. He had a family to go home to, he'd probably have breakfast waiting and kids' pictures on the refrigerator and homework to read while he ate. Oliver was a lucky man.

"You have a theory?" Duncan said, waving away the offered cigarette.

He quit smoking a week after making sergeant and two years later, he was a detective too, and still craving the evil things. He still carried the lighter, but that wasn't part of the habit, it was part of another obsession.

They walked outside, and he watched her every move as she opened a new pack, gave it that special flip of the wrist that all smokers do with their own particular style, and selected one of the cigarette tips that poked up artistically. She absently tapped the tobacco end against the back of her thumb. It never occurred to Duncan that he looked like a hungry dog.

She didn’t point it out, she was still thinking hard about something else, he knew, and he was almost afraid to ruin her train of thought. Duncan reached in his pocket for the lighter. It was his father's, the only thing Duncan kept to remind him.

He struck it open. The fire was symbolic—and a painful reminder at that.

She grabbed his hand, cradled the flame, and drew the slight cinder-tip on her cigarette into bright-orange life. He breathed with her as she inhaled, and didn't realize he was holding his breath until she let her own puff of smoke release with a satisfied sigh.

"You're sure you don't want one?" she said, clearly amused.

He didn't like her smile. She looked like the wolf that ate Red Riding Hood's grandmother and was then offering the leftovers to Hood as a snack. She knew him too well, and she enjoyed the discomfort it caused him.

"Just like a dog," she said, as expected. "You never stop drooling."

He wasn't sure she was talking about her cigarette or herself. He couldn't tell her which anyway, and he didn't want to talk history. That was long past, and not many knew about it anyway. Neither one of them knew what happened, both of them accepted fault, and so they remained friends, in a way.

"Why did you ask about the suicide?" Duncan said. "That's old news. You know something different now?"

She thought for a bit, took another drag, and talked through the smoke out her nose. "The woman on the bridge."

That part wasn’t attractive to watch, she looked like a tow-truck driver not a siren at all. So he repeated it because he wasn’t sure what she meant: “The woman on the bridge.”

He had to think for a moment, then remembered. Oliver called the woman—the other woman, the live woman—the space cadet. Seattle had its share of oddball characters, what city didn’t? Most were harmless, but some they watched out of habit. Some they had confrontations with on a regular basis, but could do little beyond the weekly or monthly call in. It was all part of the drill, the citizens went on without knowing about most of it.

"She still there?" he said, and yawned. I should have gotten a cup of coffee too, he thought.

The bridge was not the usual place for the homeless. Under the bridge maybe, but that part wasn't so friendly over there. Aurora bridge: too high, too many big rocks, too much wind hissed through underneath, and there were no Missions with shelter from the rain, or giving out hot meals, or places to shower or even sit comfortably out of the elements for awhile.

But the woman wasn't homeless, that was a point of difference. Not of interest, he thought, just difference. He was no missionary himself, which is one reason why he was very glad not to be on the streets like that anymore.

Terry started walking toward her car again.

"She's there, she's always there," she said, but it sounded far away, like her mind was still on the bridge with the woman.

Terry stopped and turned back, waiting. Duncan stepped quickly to join her.

"She's there every morning," she said. "Oliver thinks she's a jumper too and he keeps making me drive by there to check on her. It's either that or he's got the hots for her."

That was funny, but neither of them laughed. Oliver's family was his religion, they knew. Something sacred like that wasn't really a joking matter.

"Did you look up her stats in the system?" Duncan said. "Does she have a sheet, a mental history maybe?"

"No reason to look her up. I'm curious, but I can't make myself do it. I wouldn't want someone snooping over my vitals just on the off-chance that I’m not all there. Besides, I don't know her last name, and it's too late to ask now."

"Why is that?" But Duncan already knew it was awkward, and it was unofficial.

Terry never broke the rules that way, not when civil rights were an issue. Her mother was an aging Sixties activist with an impressive arrest record to match. Her father was an attorney for such things. In fact, that’s how they met: over bail and free legal advice. Terry had that kind of pedigree, and she never even bent the rules when it came to that sort of thing. Not officially.

Terry shook her head. "She's not as dumb as she pretends or as weird as she tries to be," she said. “Oliver calls her a space cadet, but I think she sees everything, and her mind is always processing there behind those vacant eyes.”

"That's not so unusual these days, people putting on airs just to be enigmatic, I mean. They think it makes them interesting. People used to just ask you your sign of the Zodiac in a bar—“

”Ah, those were the days,” she said, snickering.

Duncan ignored the sarcasm. “But she's only been out there for a couple of weeks, right, maybe three. Some of the homeless down in Pioneer Square have lived there for years. Sure they go down one block, or up another alley, but they never get too far away from it."

Terry dropped her cigarette and ground it down with her foot. She didn't answer right away, and that bothered him.

"You want me to check on her, Terry?"

"No, like I said, I don't know her last name."

"So think of a reason to ask her. It doesn't have to be official, you could be friendly, chat, buy her a coffee, introduce her or something."

Terry laughed. Terry didn't have friends who were women, she didn't like women much at all. She thought they were either jealous of her, or ambitious like her, or just boring. Most times she was right, so she had no use for any of them, and everybody knew it. She had plenty of friends—most were her parents’ age, or men.

"You're right," she said. "I didn't think of that. I must be tired. I do need her name for my report from this morning, she was a witness. Good call, Sergeant."

She blew him a kiss as she opened her car door, slipped inside, and slammed it without another word. Duncan knew the signs: Terry had an idea. Everything else came second now. Oliver talked about it all the time: Terry's nose for trouble. Oliver would look out for her though, Oliver was a good partner. Duncan knew that from personal experience.

Duncan also knew that Terry relied on Oliver as much as he ever did when he had the chance. That was also history, but not so touchy. He missed Oliver, but he didn't miss thumping a beat every day—or every night. It was too structured, even if it wasn't ordinary. No police work is.

Duncan tapped on the window. She rolled it down.

"What does Oliver think about all of this?" he asked.

Terry smiled. "He thinks her parents were flower children that ate too many magic mushrooms and maybe slipped some into her bottle way back when."

Duncan blinked at her dimples and wondered why he had failed to fall in love with her. Had she fallen in love with him? The idea made him nervous, and he wasn't sure if it was thinking about her, or wondering about himself.

He went on the offensive instead. "He thinks your parents went to too many Young Republican meetings," he said, “even if it was only to protest.”

"Either could cause chromosome damage," Terry said.

They laughed.

"Maybe he's right," Duncan said. "Oliver reads people pretty well."

"I don't think it's that easy," she said and drove away.

"It never is," he whispered.

He watched after her for a few minutes, playing with the lighter in his pocket. It was his father's lucky charm, a favorite from long-past police days on the beat. His father worked different shifts as a cop around law school classes whenever he could. It took quite awhile to finish, and even longer for him to finally figured that it wasn’t what he really wanted to do.

The work ethics and honesty got him into the fringes of politics then. His father made it into the diplomatic corps and his mother, like all political wives, played her role very well. She was with him up to the end.

Duncan missed them, had missed them for years—even when they were both still alive. He still remembered helping his father carry the homework books into the waiting police cruiser as they took him to his Boy Scout meetings. His father's partner would poke him in the shoulder and tell him to not become a punk. Duncan never did figure out just how you could.

That's when Duncan learned that partners were your life line to anything real. It was like that in the Marines too, only more so with many of the guys in your unit. Sometimes partners kept you sane, but sometimes being around so many people in the military bothered him. It was hard to think for yourself with that many people around you, with too many expecting things from you.

Duncan didn't have a partner right now, he was an odd man out, and alone.

"Alone," he whispered, and he knew it had nothing to do with work.

How long had he been alone? Years? Not with Oliver though, Oliver dragged him into his own home life and his own family. When the man had the chance.

That was good for Duncan, he knew, that was healthy.

But promotion came along, and Duncan had to take it. Maybe they were getting too close, Oliver's family. Too close to the bone and the pain of Duncan's own loss.

But Oliver got a new partner in Terry. She was first in her training class, and rumor had it she had turned down college scholarships and Playboy modeling jobs to become a cop in Seattle. Something about real life being more impressive than the structure of monied society, she once said. Duncan thought it was something Terry’s mother had said first, and that Terry was becoming a cop just to stick it to her old man.

Terry was smart and beautiful, and she would have given him anything he asked.

Love. Marriage. A home. Kids maybe, some day.

But he couldn't ask. Or wouldn't ask. Duncan didn't know himself well enough anymore to ask someone else to understand him. After running this long and hard, he found it hard to stop now.

But he'd be damned if he'd feel sorry for himself, and he wouldn't let anyone else feel sorry either. Even his partners past.

Duncan pulled out the lighter and slowly flicked it on and off, over and over again. He didn't see the police cruiser pull out of the garage. The honk startled him.

An officer he didn't recognize leaned out the window as it passed. "Move it, buddy," the officer said. "No loitering here."

Not someone he knew. Duncan didn't know if the cop was teasing or just being a jerk. He knew he couldn't stand here all day. He waved and smiled anyway.

He walked around the block to clear his head, then went back to this desk. Virginia, his latest partner, had gone on maternity leave last week—no, it was the week before. Now Duncan was stuck with all the paperwork to do from their last weeks of frenzied crime busting.

Virginia claimed it was a modern woman's substitute for nesting. Virginia believed in the natural flow of things, and no one doubted her when she said it was time to take off, the baby was due soon.

"No sweeping, folding, or dusting for me," she told him. "Bust some heads, clean up the city, I have to keep busy, but I’ll do it on my own terms."

They laughed at the time, but she was true to her word. Duncan thought it was funny then, and when they cleared their backed-up caseload ahead of schedule, their commanding officer was full of praise.

Now the guy would be expecting it. Not that there wasn't plenty of new cases to fill their time, but the interesting cases didn't come their way so close to Virginia's scheduled leave. They got the quick and easy ones, if there was such a thing. Now Duncan was left to do all the paper work, but he couldn't read her writing, and worse, he was restless in general too.

Oliver said it was sympathy spasms for Virginia's condition, but Duncan had only known her since his first partner retired, so couldn’t figure that was true. Roy had been Duncan's first partner as a detective, that is. It was hard making the transition from a regular beat with Oliver, his first partner in uniform. But Roy was a good substitute for a lot of the things that Duncan missed.

How long had it been since he thought of Roy?

A while now—and it wasn't a pleasant memory at the end.

Duncan only worked with Roy five months, but he learned five years' worth in that stretch, whether he wanted to or not. And he liked the old man, everybody did. But Roy didn't have time to like his retirement, he died of a heart attack two months into it.

Virginia came next by his side. She was completely different, but a seasoned officer with her own merits. They got along as well as any of them. They had an understanding: She didn't mother him, and he didn't patronize her like some of the other cops did with minority women in this line of work.

People, even cops, could get a bit skittish. But he never had a problem with how to talk to her. Or about her—he didn’t. She was just Virginia, a good cop, and a nice person.

"Too bad she never learned how to write," he mumbled straining over the scribbles in her case note book.

He put that down to her own skittishness. Even if she acted like it didn’t matter, she still had the first-time expectant-mother nerves. But he only knew that because of Oliver’s wife.

He decided to treat her like he had always done. Duncan picked up the phone and tapped out the numbers.

There was no answer. Duncan decided that he had no business bothering a person on leave, especially maternity leave. It wasn't that important.

His own phone buzzed. Someone left a message. When had he turned it off? It wasn't a number he recognized.

He called, but the voice wasn't familiar.

"Virginia had her baby, a beautiful little girl, just beautiful," the woman said.

Duncan congratulated them and hung up. It must have been someone in the family, he thought.

The phone on his desk rang, and he jumped.

It was his commanding officer. They called him the chief, some out of respect, some out of habit, for the man had been a Navy chief out of Bremerton before he settled in Seattle for good. Duncan liked him, he was a military man like himself, and still had that respect for order and method.

But not too much respect, cops weren’t quite the same thing. Duncan smiled.

"You heard?" the chief said.

"Sure, should we send flowers or something?"

"What? Oh, yeah, right. Look, there's a new guy coming up from Portland in a few days. He's a transfer, but seasoned."

"Since when are we taking strays from down south. I thought the new regime said that we promoted from inside."

"Save it for the union meetings, Duncan," the chief snapped.

Duncan pulled his ear from the phone and stared at it a moment. Obviously, this was a sore spot and a point already spoken to in the offices higher up.

"Sorry about that," the chief said. "I guess the guy knows his brass from his elbows. They're ramming him down my throat too, and you got the luck of the draw by way of being the only sucker left lonely in the pool."

"Sure, forget it," Duncan said, "but why don't you promote Oliver? He passed the test."

"I was way ahead of you, Duncan. He passed the test, but he passed on the promotion too," the chief said.

"Why would he do that? He never told me about that. Did he say why?"

"Said he was too close to retirement to change his habits now."

"He's got seven years left," Duncan said, "and what about the pay? His kids are getting older, they’ll be heading off to college. His wife wants a new house. I don't believe this."

"Look, the man has his reasons. He doesn't think the money is worth the responsibility or the aggravation. Detectives work long hours, as you well know, and once you get working on a problem, it’s hard to let it go just because it’s not your shift. Who am I to tell him that he's wrong? He’s doing what’s best for him and his family. Deal with it, Duncan."

The chief hung up. Everything he said was true.

"Another partner," Duncan mumbled.

"Another partner?"

It was the detective at the next desk over who said it. Then he whistled, and Duncan wadded a piece of paper and tossed it at him. The detective smacked it like a baseball with his pencil. Two-base hit.

"Some guy from Portland," Duncan said.

"When's he coming in?" the detective said.

"Who?" This time it was the other detective's partner, coming in with two coffees and a donut balanced on top of each.

"Duncan's new partner," said the first detective.

"You got a new partner already? Another one?"

"Virginia had her kid," Duncan said, "and the new guy is going to be here in a few days."

The two detectives whistled together.

"Virginia spawned," they said together.

"Just coast until then," one said. "I heard you and Virginia did a mop up anyway. Makes the rest of us look back, but God bless female hormones."

His partner disagreed. His partner hadn’t been married all that long—this time.

Duncan didn't want any part of that discussion. He had reports to finish, but he didn't want to do it here. He felt like the only one who had to stay in for recess. He checked his phone again. Unfortunately it was still working, but it was just dull and glowing with nothing more to say.

"Hey Duncan, where you going?" one of the detectives called.

"Library, it's quiet and I have to take a few books back. I can use their computers to type up reports and mail them into myself here."

It was only partly a lie, but it would get him out of the office. He was afraid he was getting a reputation as a loner. It was true enough, but he didn't need the extra attention as a reminder.

Top

The waterfront of Seattle at night in December 2007, as seen from the arriving Bainbridge Ferry. Photo by Moxfyre

* * * * *

CHAPTER 04 - The Package

The bright afternoon sun soaked into the dark curtains on her windows and made the apartment too hot. Emi blinked into the dimness of her bedroom, and wondered why her heart was thumping so wildly.

Someone kicked the door with obvious frustration.

Emi realized that it wasn't the first time, the noise must have been what woke her. Her first inclination was to reach for a weapon, but there was nothing near but the lamp that was bolted down, and a plastic fork and paper plate by her bedside—even the crumbs were long gone.

Then, she heard the swearing outside and relaxed.

Her cuckoo chimed a few times. She rubbed her eyes, grateful for the little bit of sleep she had managed even with so much on her mind. Then she remembered the message from Caliel and swore. She hadn't read it yet, hadn’t had the nerve.

"I'm such a coward these days."

Then she swore again, angry at herself. Joecat was at the foot of the bed. He jumped off at her words, stretching and looking back at her with accusation.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Who knew you had such delicate sensibilities."

He disappeared under the bed as the door rattled again. Dust flew across the thin sunbeam that made it through the curtains.

"It's the super, let me in," the man at the door called. "I got better things to do today than keep hammerin' after you."

The superintendent of the Lake View did not believe in service with a smile, because he barely believed in service. The super was a retired Navy man with more tattoos than brain cells. But he knew his business when it came to getting attention.

The door frame shook and threatened to give way.

He swore again, and used his key to unlock the door. The chain held. It wasn't Navy issue, and it wasn't Lake View issue either. Emi had put it on after she reinforced the door frame with a couple of two-by-fours.

"Come on, I know you're in there," he yelled. "Wake up or get off the pot."

She heard his cackly laugh—he was a self-amusing man.

On the floor, Joecat emerged from beneath the bed and started licking his personals again. Emi took it as an editorial comment and laughed.

"What do you want?" she called, but it came out with half a yawn.

"I don't want nothing, girlie," the super said. "I got something for you. Want me to open it?"

Emi remembered her grade school warnings: "Come here, little girlie, I got something for you."

Run away, tell a policeman or a teacher, hide.

And later in life it was worse: "What's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this? Come outside, I’ll show you something nice."

Ignore them, insult them, drink until they looked better.

"What is it?" Emi said, but she didn't come near the door.

She knew that he couldn't see her, but she could smell him. He smoked too much—cheap cigarettes. And his skin sweated booze.

"It's a package," the super said. "They left it at the office. I been trippin' over it all morning."

The office was his motel room, free in exchange for guarding the place, collecting rents, not fixing things.

She said, "Who left it?"

"Parcel service left it. Just who you think?"

She thought for a moment. “Did you see them, or is that a guess?”

"Fine," he mumbled. "You don't want it, I'll open it myself."

He dropped it to the ground, and she heard it bounce against the door.

It must be marked fragile, she thought.

"Wait a minute, just wait," she called. It might be a bomb.

Emi opened the door again, but left the chain intact. She snagged the package with her foot. It wasn’t quite small enough to slip inside easily, so she bent down and grabbed it, pulling hard to wrench it in. As it pulled through, she fell backwards onto her backside. Just as quickly, she slammed the door with her foot, checking the chain again.

"You're welcome," he yelled through the door, then swore again. This time it came out fainter: He was walking away, complaining. The three on the door was swinging wildly now, scraping a little, enough to get on her nerves.

"Thank you," she said absently.

It was a package from Caliel.

When did it come? She checked the packing list, but it didn't help. Emi opened the door to ask the super, but he was already out of sight. As she closed her door, she saw the curtain move in a window across the courtyard. It was the apartment that Joecat liked as well as her own.

It was Lenora's place.

Lenora worked nights, and she wasn't a waitress or barmaid.

Sometimes when Emi went out for her early morning walk, she saw Lenora coming home looking tired and older than when she left at the first sign of darkness.

But that's nobody's business, Emi thought.

"I hate snoopy people."

She stared at the package and wondered if she should dump it in water first. Emi decided that Caliel wouldn't send her a bomb after all. It was too public, too noisy, too interesting. People would ask questions then, especially the police. Besides, if she had outlived her usefulness, she wouldn't see the end coming from him.

At least, I have that much to look forward to, Emi thought—an imaginative, but discrete disappearance. Something everyone would find fascinating too, if they could know about it.

Dropped down a well like Alice, or tossed over the rainbow from an airplane, perhaps. Maybe just stuffed into a drain pipe and washed down into the Sound to let the crabs and the starfish nibble away. How appropriate for Seattle. It was the twisted sort of logic that Caliel would find very entertaining.

Emi went back to her computer. Her screen saver flashed cartoons. She touched the mouse and the e-mail message banners reappeared. The one from Caliel was flagged in red now. That meant that it was important, passed due, and it meant a return receipt would be sent back to Caliel to prove that Emi had read the message.

No denials allowed.

"Some people never learn," she said and slipped into the chair.

What to do?

She reached for her Tarot deck and selected. She turned the card over with eyes closed at first: Three of Wands.

Virtue. Fat chance.

Let me see, she thought. Three of Wands, the critical factor for the issue at hand. Personal fortitude, strength of character.

This was getting funnier and funnier.

For the rest she would have to check the book or ask Lenora. The book was handier. She went to look.

“Accrued power will be set in motion towards a distant goal. Initiation of an enduring partnership based on absolute trust.”

Did that have anything to do with Simon? Not likely, she didn’t trust him, and he didn’t know her at all.

Emi sighed, but she read the rest.

“Honor will be maintained in times of desperation and struggle.”

That was harder than anyone might guess.

“Take full responsibility for a decision, bear the solitude of leadership.”

Right. Open the damned e-mail. But she’d do it on her own terms. That’s leadership all right. And survival.

“The leadership of avoidance.” Then she wondered if any of the cards said anything about that.

Emi typed in the sequence of function keys she had programmed for just this occasion. Caliel's e-mail message appeared in another computer terminal window. The application was from deep down in the bowels of the operating system and bare-bones as a skeleton.

Not a friendly interface, that, you had to know what you were doing. It was a back-door program Simon had taught her, though she didn’t have the heart to tell him she already knew it quite well, and that she was one of the original programmers, in fact. It provided indirect access—like touching it with a ten-foot pole and no reply receipt sent. In fact, the e-mail message was forwarded to another persona in a translated code that looked like somebody else’s trash.

The message mentioned the package. Emi glanced over at it, but it didn't look so ominous among all her odds and ends on the coffee table that was really a huge old cable spool. The floor still had the brackets where the real, normal coffee table had been, but the outline of the dead body on the floor had been drawn partly over them. Crushed when the victim fell, it seems. Replaced by the super, who was nothing if not resourceful.

No bomb in the package then. Caliel wouldn't lie, and Caliel never exaggerated either, it was against his religion. Boring man, her boss, predictable too.

The rest of the message was more to the point. Colonel Park was in town, this town. Did he know she was here? Colonel Park was a problem Emi didn't want to deal with now. But she liked him even if he was too much trouble. There was a certain honesty in such ruthlessness. Caliel didn't like him though, his manners at tea were appalling.

Emi smirked, and pictured Caliel's face at the last meeting. Colonel Park took control, managed to run the show. When you had made your own rules for so long, you saw no reason to follow anyone else's now. The same was true of both Caliel and Colonel Park.

But the more Emi thought about it, the more her smile faded. It did answer the question of the Moon—who Lily Seung might be working for now. She grabbed her orange-bag-turned-purse and pulled out the gun. Emi checked the clip and the safety, and then the spare clips too.

I should have practiced more, she thought, looking over the sites at a target on the kitchenette counter. She put the pistol back in her bag.

Emi went to the bedroom and stared at the door of the scary closet-hole for a moment. She grabbed a flashlight from the night stand, flipped it on, and reached down to grab a shoe box from one of the bigger cardboard boxes.

She had gathered up several of them to ship her friend's things back to what was left of Julia's disjointed, distant family. But once she filled them there, she hadn’t yet sent them on.

The flashlight was to scare or blind any creepy-crawlies living inside the closet, because shooting them with a gun seemed, even to her, a bit too much, though she suspected the super, a Navy man, would have liked it. But she could also use it as a club if she had to, because sometimes she could hear something bigger scratching somewhere in the pile. Joecat might be a more useful tool in that case, but he was already on to other things.

Emi was the first to admit that she was paranoid about things hiding, waiting, watching. It was only a closet, after all, but people could die in there. Well, in places like that. Small-enough boxes left in the open for the sun and the wind to torment you for long hot days or the rain or the snow to stab at you during endless cold nights.

You couldn’t lay down all the way, you had no place to sit but on the floor which was mud and filth or insects that pinched, and you couldn’t stand full tall either. It was like living in a trunk. A trunk that became a coffin.

I should drink more, she thought, and glanced over to the small, old fridge, wishing she had some liquor.

* * *

Mission accomplished, she found what she was after in the closet-hole—eventually. Now Emi sat on the linoleum floor in the kitchenette and brushed the crumbs and pieces of cat kibble aside. Joecat ate better than some people these days.

She opened the shoe box and dumped out the contents: Pictures and newspaper clippings. She separated the pictures and put the clippings back in the box. Emi studied the photos, then arranged them in the proper order.

Some were old and well-worn favorites.

Some were new and painful.

Julia and Emi in first grade holding up their handmade Christmas gifts for unsuspecting parents. Julia’s mom, after all, was Jewish.

Julia and Emi in the third grade, waiting in line for the movies—going alone for the very first time. The popcorn tubs looked as big around as their torsos, and even now she remembered how their hand and wrist shook as they held onto their massive drinks.

There were pictures of the tumbling team in sixth grade, cheerleading in junior high, and their high school graduation. They changed over the years—hair and height and makeup, even braces. But in most of them, their faces had the same smile, and their heads were held close together in intimate camaraderie.

Emi touched the pictures tenderly and smiled.

Roller skating in college, dinner at an expensive restaurant for Emi's first job, their first trip to the Grand Canyon—the photos progressed through their lives like a movie preview.

The picture of Julia in Phoenix was the last of the old pictures. The rest Emi had found in Julia's last known address: the weary little apartment she had cleared of all traces of past life. Julia's long-divorced parents couldn't do it, Emi didn’t want to do it either, but she had to. She did it in a daze, it didn't feel real, didn't feel like herself folding Julia's clothes, wrapping the few souvenirs and trinkets from Seattle, tossing out the old newspapers and magazines after first checking them thoroughly for messages, codes, or clues.

Emi put the old pictures away and stared at the others—newer ones: surveillance.

Lily Seung. Simon Greenlake. The front doors to S-O-Software, Simon’s company.

The view from the bridge.

It was the same view that Emi saw every morning now. It was the same view that Julia had seen on the last day of her life. Going there every day was both a promise and a reminder. Emi leaned back against the cupboard and wiped away the one big tear she allowed herself.

"I should burn these, standard protocol," she said and sighed.

She scooped the pictures up and put them in the box, all but two: One of S-O-Software and one of Simon. Emi had seen the corporate headquarters of his company before, but it was in a small generic business park like so many others around here. She needed the picture to be sure, because she couldn’t find the exact address numbers.

Part of his own pathetic stab at corporate security, she was sure.

The other photo was of Simon smiling in the sun. It wasn't spring yet, but the budding leaves on the trees showed it was close. There were signs of water in the background, a bike path winding behind them, and the dull shape of a garbage can in the distance with the logo of the city. Someone behind him had the hunched-over stance of a skilled in-line skater too.

The park at Green Lake.

It's a nice neighborhood, she thought. Lily Seung's neighborhood. Cliché, given his name.

Greenlake? Oh really, that’s where I live, did they name the place after you?

Sweet little giggle. Like a pickup line in a bar. Not that he frequented such places, but he didn’t have to chase women now, they chased his soon-to-be billions instead.

Julia took this picture of Simon in Lily Seung's neighborhood, probably on their way to visit the zoo. It was a favorite thing to do, according to Julia’s notes. Might be a drop-off place, in fact.

Simon wasn't looking at the camera, he was talking to someone else. Emi held the picture closer, and could barely make out the hand of someone near him.

A short mauve fingernail filed into a funky kind of point? Julia’s fingernail. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I just want it to be, she thought. If that was Julia there, then had Julia introduced herself, or was she caught off guard when following him?

“Here, miss, would you take our picture, please?”

Julia wasn’t a skilled field operative, she would have followed too close. Lily Seung would have spotted her too. Is that how it had all started, the countdown on Julia’s life?

Emi dropped the picture in the shoe box too, then carried it over to the couch. She put the other picture, the one of S-O-Software, into her orange bag.

She yawned and glanced at the clock as it cuckooed again. Maybe she’d get some kind of kids’ meal toy and glue it onto the stick. Still, it seems she had fallen asleep before her shower, and she knew she must be starting to stink.

"Time to get on with it then," she said.

CROOKED ANGELS

by
Marilyn M Schulz

An angel lost his wing, Crooked he did fly. - Emma Racine deFleur

Synopsis

Sample Chapters
Kindle Format

Other Formats
eBooks by Marilyn M Schulz

SYNOPSIS

Sample Chapters

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Copyright and Disclaimers

NOTE: All works copyrighted by Marilyn M Schulz
These are works of fiction, inspired by historical events: The author makes no claim of accuracy.
Background texture provided by: grsites.com

Artwork Used is in the Public Domain and attributed when available.

Page design by Bert Schulz

CROOKED ANGELS

by Marilyn M Schulz

An angel lost his wing, Crooked he did fly. - Emma Racine deFleur

Synopsis Sample Chapters Kindle Format Other Formats eBooks by Marilyn M Schulz

SYNOPSIS

Sample Chapters

Top

Copyright and Disclaimers

NOTE: All works copyrighted by Marilyn M Schulz These are works of fiction, inspired by historical events: The author makes no claim of accuracy. Background texture provided by: grsites.com Artwork Used is in the Public Domain and attributed when available. Page design by Bert Schulz

by
Marilyn M Schulz

Synopsis

Sample Chapters
Kindle Format

Other Formats
eBooks by Marilyn M Schulz

NOTE: All works copyrighted by Marilyn M Schulz
These are works of fiction, inspired by historical events: The author makes no claim of accuracy.
Background texture provided by: grsites.com

Artwork Used is in the Public Domain and attributed when available.

Page design by Bert Schulz