A matter of time

1975

Cash was reasonably impressed with the Tran family. The boys were a handsome pair, he thought during the introductions. Taller than their parents already, and not at all uncomfortable with American ways.

When he mentioned it, Tran replied, "They spent several years in the company of American children in Saigon. Children are more adaptable than us old folks anyway."

"That's the truth. That's why they turn them into soldiers. Well, let's get your stuff upstairs, show you your rooms. The boys are going to have to share, I'm afraid."

The Vietnamese hadn't brought much with them. Annie asked if the rest of their things were being shipped.

"This is it," Tran replied, almost apologetically. "We weren't able to bring much out." Then, to ease Annie's embarrassment, "Something smells good."

"Supper. It's just spaghetti. I didn't know what to fix."

"You won't hear any complaints from my sons. They were ecstatic when they saw how near that pizza shop is."

"Imo's?" Cash asked. "I know it well. Michael and Matthew damned near kept the place in business when they lived at home. This's it. Your room." He hadn't been into it for weeks. Annie had done a job. New curtains, new sheets, new bedspread, some plants in the windows, everything squeaky clean.

Once it had been Michael's room. She had cleaned out every scrap that had been the mark of their son's personality, even patching the plaster where the framed centerfold of a favorite Playmate had hung till he and John had pulled it-down while clowning.

Cash slipped his arm around Annie's waist in a congratulatory hug.

"It's very nice." Tran seemed as much at a loss as they. His wife said nothing at all, and the boys, in the hall, confined themselves to whispers.

"The bathroom's right here," Annie said. "I'll show your sons their room, then we'll let you settle in. Supper will be ready when you are." She took Norm's hand and led him downstairs.

The wine she served with supper helped everyone relax. It was a native Missouri pink catawba; they made no pretenses in that direction. Soon all but Tran's wife were chattering like old friends. The major didn't seem to mind that his sons were heard as well as seen.

The phone rang while Annie was dishing out homemade butter pecan ice cream.

Cash answered it. "Hi. No. Yeah. You tried the station? Yeah, he was working on something for me, but I figured he'd get done in time for supper. Guess he must've hit a snag, eh? Would you tell him to call me when he gets there? Sure. Bye."

Annie raised a questioning eyebrow when he returned to the dining room.

"Carrie. Looking for John." How long could he keep this Teri business to himself? Annie had an annoying habit of putting odd numbers together to get four. Came from reading those damned mysteries all the time.

"Your partner?" Tran inquired. "I meant to ask, how did you do with that case? The one with the old lady and the mysterious corpse."

"Still going. We keep digging things up. It just gets spookier." He brought Tran up to date.

"And not one body turned up? Very strange."

"No lie. Don't know for sure about the bodies, though. Tomorrow we start checking back, to see what's on the record."

"Norm," said Annie, "I thought O'Lochlain told you they just disappeared. If they'd ever turned up anywhere, his people would have known. Wouldn't they? And he'd have told you, wouldn't he?"

"Maybe. Tommy's a little strange."

As Cash drifted toward sleep that night he realized that John hadn't called. It didn't matter that much this time, but he was going to have to get onto the kid's case. Otherwise this thing with Teri was going to cause problems.

Cash reached work a half hour late because he had driven Tran in for his first day of work and had gotten, talking with the man's boss.

Tran seemed to have timed his arrival to his job, to avoid the appearance of freeloading.

"Where's John, Beth?" he asked as he pushed in. Smith and Tucholski had the squad room thoroughly fogged already.

"Not in yet."

"His car's in the lot."

"Maybe he's downstairs."

"Maybe. I've got some research to get him started on. Tell him to see me whenever he shows."

He spent ten minutes reviewing the activities of the previous shifts, then leaned back. It wouldn't be such a bad year after all. The first quarter had been an anomaly. The heavy casualties had been primarily drug-related. That war seemed to have settled out now. Even the papers had found more interesting fare.

The remaining nuts, too, seemed firmly attached to their trees.

Next thing he knew, Beth was shaking him awake. "Your friend from New York just called. He says the Rochester place is a complete bust if you're looking for something illegal. There's one old man who's lived there forever, and that's it. Just like your Miss Groloch, only this one's never been in any trouble. He said it'd help if he knew what the hell you were looking for."

"Ah, the heck with it. Should've known I was wasting my time. What about John?"

"Not here. Hang on a minute." The phone was ringing.

A moment later, "It was that judge. He said he still hasn't made up his mind, but you're getting closer. You've got him interested."

"Okay." He eyed Smith, who was stalking around with one cigarette in hand while another smoldered in his ashtray. The man was talking to himself.

Everybody had problems.

The temptation to run across to the liquor store after a pack of his own was, suddenly, horribly powerful.

"About that dinner I owe you. Would you think I was welshing if I invited you over to the house?"

She was several seconds answering. "No, that's okay." She didn't sound enthusiastic, though.

"Hey. Come on. I owe you. I'll do whatever you want." He had thought that bringing in another shy person might liven Tran's wife. The woman behaved like a lost soul.

Beth brought a cup of coffee. "I know. Doctor says verboten. But you'd better get it inside you. Hank's grumbling about whipping the outfit into shape again. What if he catches his sergeant sleeping on the job?"

"It'll blow over by Monday. It always does. You want to slow him down, just look at his old man like he's the first change you're going to make."

"Damn!" It was the phone again. "That thing's been jumping off my desk all morning." A moment later, "It's for you. Your wife."

He took it on his extension. "Yeah?"

"Did John show up this morning? Carrie just called again. He never came home last night."

Suddenly, Cash was back in that shack in the Ardennes. The Tigers and Panthers were clanking past with all the sound of hammers pounding the anvils of doom.

The panzergrenadiers, all tough, hard-eyed veterans of five years of warfare, were closing in.

His guts cramped with the fear.

"Norm! What's the matter?"

Two voices said it. He looked from the phone to Beth.

"Oh… nothing. Just… for some reason I was remembering the war." Now he was more puzzled than frightened.

"Is John up to something?" Annie demanded.

"Not now. I'll tell you later. Tonight. Okay? I'll find him. Bye." Teri. Damned, it had better be Teri. "Beth, would you get ahold of the Post's classified ad department for me?"

Those grim panzergrenadiers stalked forward under the low gray sky, their silence a dread contrast with the squeal, clank, and roar of the armor. The young Cash turned the crank on the abandoned field phone, round and round and round. No one answered.

Who was he calling, anyway? Hitler himself?

He was dead meat. He knew it.

"Norm?" Beth was offering the phone.

"Teri Middleton, please," he croaked, hoping the girl was using her maiden name again, or that there was only one Teri employed there. "No, dammit! This isn't a personal call. This's the goddamned police department."

He waved Beth out.

The girl was on the line in seconds. "John?"

"Shit," he muttered to himself. "Teri? This's Norm. I don't want to pry, but have you seen John?"

"No."

"Look, it's important. I want to make sure he isn't in some kind of trouble. We haven't been able to locate him since yesterday."

"Well, I haven't either."

"You're sure?"

"I said so, didn't I?"

"Shit. Oh, shit."

"Swear to God. Really. He was supposed to meet me after work yesterday. He never showed up."

"He didn't?"

"No."

"Okay. Thanks." He lowered the receiver slowly. "What the hell am I going to do?" He looked right through Beth, who had ignored his directive to withdraw.

"Norm?" She sounded frightened now. "What is it? What happened?"

"It's John. He… no. I can't tell you yet. I've got to check some things before I tell anybody." His ass was going to be in a sling. He was, voluntarily, going to confess to an illegal entry. "I'll be back in a little while."

He first checked John's car. It seemed to be in the same parking space as yesterday, though that wasn't remarkable in itself. Still, no one had seen Harald. He hadn't signed in, nor had he called in.

A half hour later Cash was cruising past John's home. Harald's children were playing in the yard. He scrunched down to avoid recognition.

Carrie's Plymouth Satellite stood at the curb. And John's Honda stood inside the open garage, leaning against one wall.

John hadn't gone off to live on the beach at Malibu.

"Shit." His vocabulary had grown terribly limited today, he reflected.

His guts were cramping again.

The feldwebel with the Winter War patch spun through the door of the shack a second after another grenadier smacked it with the heel of a field boot. His submachine gun looked like an eighty-eight. Cash hadn't believed his fear could grow stronger.

Honking horns and squealing tires yanked him out of the flashback.

He had run a stop sign. Death's greedy claws had missed him by inches.

The brush calmed him.

He drove past the Groloch house twice. It hadn't changed, yet it now seemed somehow both deadly and dead.

Annie would tell him what to do.

"What're you doing home?" She had been trying to explain macrame to Tran's wife. The boys were watching television and playing chess. Cash had already discovered, to his embarrassment, just how good they were at the latter.

"Honey, I… I think I yanked the tiger's tail one time too many." He collapsed into a chair. "I don't know what to do." He rubbed his forehead with his left hand.

"What is it?" She was alarmed now.

"It's John. I… I had him sneak into Miss Groloch's place while she was at the funeral yesterday."

"Without a warrant? Stupid. You want to blow your retirement? Norman, I think you've become obsessed. When you start cutting corners-"

"Annie. Please. I know all that. That's not the point. It's already too late to worry about it." His breath came in quick, shallow gasps. "It doesn't look like he ever came out."

Her jaw hung slack for fifteen seconds. "What?"

"John went in and never came out. Just like O'Brien and O'Lochlain's hoods and that Colin Meara kid."

"Oh. Oh, no. Lord, no. Norm, what're we going to do?"

"I don't know. God. I don't know. I wish I did. But all I can think about is what I should've done. I've got to talk it over with Hank, got to do something…"

Annie sat on the arm of the chair. "Poor Carrie."

"Poor everybody." The shit was going to hit the fan in a big way. A lot of people were going to get hurt.

"Whatever you do, don't go charging in there after him. Okay? Promise?"

"Honey, I don't think I've got the guts to go in there again, ever. Under any conditions. I'm scared. I mean, like I haven't been since the war."

The German sergeant relaxed, laughed softly, dragged the pale youth from behind the heap of broken peasant furnishings. His smile was neither gloating nor malicious. He removed the M1 from Norm's trembling fingers, handed it to a landser, patted Norm's shoulder. "Be okay, Yank." He pulled the ration cigarettes from Cash's pocket, passed them around to his men, stuck one between Cash's lips, put the remainder back where he had found them. He and his men took turns lighting up and warming their hands at the stove whose smoke had given the American away.

And it had worked out. Six days later Cash was holding the rifle and passing out the smokes when counterattacking American troops caught up with them.

But the terror had never let up.

What was Joachim Schleicher doing these days? The stone mason's apprentice who had run away in thirty-eight, at sixteen, to enlist and make his contribution to the New Order, had been a bitter old man at twenty-three. Danzig was in Poland now, wasn't it? Had he even bothered to go home? Might be interesting to trace the sergeant someday.

"Norm?"

"Huh? Oh. Sorry. Funny. I keep getting these flashbacks to the war. It's almost like I'm living it over again."

"You'd better get ahold of yourself."

"I know. I know. I almost had a wreck today. I still don't know what to do."

"There isn't a whole lot you can. You just go see Hank. Before you do anything."

"I told you, I'm not going in there again. Not without an army, anyway. You've got me wrong if you think I'm a hero."

Le Quyen appeared from the kitchen with a hot cup of tea, which she offered shyly.

"Thank you, Le Quyen. This'll help." And a few sips did. "That reminds me. I invited Beth Tavares over for supper. Been working her pretty hard. Thought that might help make it up."

"Maybe. She'd probably appreciate a dinner out more."

"You think so? Would you mind?"

"No. Why should I?"

Because she had Monday, when first he had mentioned it. Very much. He didn't comment on her reversal, though. Over the years he had grown accustomed to her inconsistencies, however much they confused him.

"Okay. You're probably right. I'll talk to her. Poor girl. She's put up with a lot this week."

"I think you better go talk to Hank."

"I know. I'm stalling. What the hell's all that racket?"

Tran's sons sped outside. Quang returned long enough to announce, "Fire trucks." He dashed up the street.

It was Dr. Smiley's house, at the west end of the block. The one with the junglelike yard. It looked like a bad fire.

It was the first fire on the block since Cash had moved in.

"Hope he saves his sweaters," Annie observed laconically. "What would he do if he had to go around out of uniform?"

Cash chuckled. Other than for the wilderness state of his yard, Dr. Smiley was known for wearing sweater on sweater, year round, all of them in shades of navy blue.

"Maybe you should see if he needs anything," Cash suggested. The man wasn't a friend, but they had known him for nearly thirty years.

Cash headed for his confrontation with Lieutenant Railsback.

The urge to put it off was so powerful that he drove himself straight into Hank's office. Beth tried to stop him, but he ignored her completely. This had to be done before his nerve collapsed.

"Christ, Norm, what's up? You look like hell."

"I feel like it. I fucked up. I mean all-time, royally, chocolate-covered, in spades fucked up."

Railsback slid around his desk and gently closed the office door. "Bad?"

"The worst. For all of us. The whole department, maybe. But especially for me. And John." He told it all at a machine-gun pace.

Hank surprised him by not blowing up. Beyond agreeing, "You're right. You screwed up like a grand champion."

But Railsback could be that way. When it was too late, when the situation was too serious for yelling, he sometimes didn't.

"Dad!"

Cash had to repeat it all for Hank's father.

"You gotta go in after him," the older man told them.

"I know that," Hank replied. "What I'm wondering is how we can cover ourselves."

"Say you went in after a burglar reported by an anonymous caller. I'll go over to the liquor store and make the call."

"That won't mean shit if the inspector's office starts digging." He was furious behind the calm exterior. There would be hell to pay later. "The first question will be how come Homicide responded to a B-and-E."

Cash stared at the worn oak flooring, tracing the dirt-filled cracks. Why hadn't he let go of this thing?

John. Gone!…

"You ain't got no choice."

"I know, Dad. I know." Railsback opened the door. "Tavares! Smith! Tucholski! In here!"

Once they arrived, packing the room painfully tight, till body heat and increased humidity made the place a torture chamber, Railsback explained. "Our idiot friend here, the ghost hunter, the flying saucer man, the part-time time traveler, has managed to lose his partner in his favorite haunted house. We're going in after him. And you ain't telling nobody anything about it, not now, not never, unless you get my say-so. It ain't going to be legal, and so I mean nobody, or I'll cut your hearts out and have them on my Wheaties with brown sugar. Do I make myself clear?"

Everyone nodded.

"Good. Tavares, call downstairs for a couple extra shotguns; tear gas; handy-talkies; vests; the works. Tucholski, you, Smith, and Dad will take the backdoor. Me, Norm, and Beth will go in from the front."

"Me, too?" Beth asked from the doorway. She had not yet been permitted into the field, though technically she was a detective in training. Railsback was that kind of boss. Had she had any gumption, she could have forced him to stop using her as a secretary.

"You heard me. This's a family matter… Cash!"

"Eh? Sir?"

"Where's your piece?"

He had to think about it. Contrary to regulations, he almost never carried his weapon. Though there was the riot gun in the trunk of his cruise car…

"In my desk."

"You'll carry it today. And every day from here on in. Hear this, everybody. This's going to be a model squad room starting now. When the inspector's office gets onto our case they aren't going to find a thing. I make myself clear?"

He didn't make them sign in blood, but the thought was there.

There were problems with the equipment, but Railsback lied and bluffed. In ten minutes they were moving, a car for each group. Cash drove and kept his mouth shut. He wasn't about to antagonize Railsback. Not even by observing that his having deputized his father was outright illegal.

Smoke hung heavy over the neighborhood. "Looks like that fire is a real bitch kitty," said Cash.

"Don't want to wish anybody misery," Hank replied, "but it'll help. Everybody for blocks will be over there rubbernecking."

Cash parked. Hank was right. There wasn't a soul on the street.

"That the place, Norm?"

"That's it."

"Spooky," said Beth.

They donned protective vests.

"Me and Norm will go in," said Railsback. "You hang on at the door, Beth. And for God's sake holler if you have to." He handed Cash a shotgun.

The fear was there again.

Beth checked her service revolver, a little frightened, a lot awed. Hank used a handy-talkie to tell Smith and Tucholski to break in the back simultaneously, leaving his father to guard the rear.

When everyone was in position, Railsback ordered, "Go!"

Both doors were unlocked.

Cash went in first, low, just like in training. Hank whirled in behind him.

Norm hadn't known what to expect. Anything but what they did find, which was a whole lot of nothing and no one on the ground floor.

"Smith, watch the stairs. Tucholski, cover us from the basement door while we go down."

Nothing again.

"Okay, we go up."

The second floor looked as though it had just been cleaned for the benefit of company. Gone were the bits of dust Cash had spotted during his previous visit. Hank looked puzzled. Cash's fear began welling up anew. It was too late. Way too late for John…

"Third floor now. Be damned careful."

Cash began shaking. Once again he crouched in a dark and dusty corner while Death stalked him across a cruel French December morning…

He didn't know he had fired till Hank grabbed the shotgun. "What the fuck's the matter with you?"

Feet pounded up the stairs.

Smith shoved past, hurtled into the room ahead, yanked curtains aside. "Ah, shit. A cat. You of fed a goddamned cat, Norm."

Old Tom, Miss Groloch's sidekick, was splattered all over the bronze-flowered wallpaper.

Cash threw up.

What else could he do to screw up?

"Hey, you guys," Beth called from below. "You all right? Come on down."

"What're you doing in here?" Railsback demanded. "Get back down there and see if anybody heard that shot."

"We've got an emergency call."

"Nothing in the attic," Tucholski reported. "Looks like she's cleared out. Took the body with her."

"We'd better get out too. Hope nobody's noticed us yet."

That would be too good to be true, Cash thought.

"What is it, Beth?" Railsback demanded.

"Dispatcher called. They want us at that fire. They turned up some bodies, and the fire department says it looks like arson."

"Bodies?" Cash asked, finally calm enough to talk and think. "Doc Smiley lived by himself. Didn't have any relatives or anything."

"Another one?" Smith asked.

"Another what?"

"Old loner."

"Naw. This guy was weird, but he was okay. A doctor.

Refugee. Came over from Europe someplace when the Russians took over… Hmmm."

"What is it?" Railsback asked.

"Just wondering if there is a connection. The old lady disappears just when Smiley's house burns down… Nan, couldn't be. That's too far out. She was a lot older than him. Been here eighty years longer…"

"Worry about it later. Let's show over there before somebody starts wondering what we're up to. Hey, Dad. Come here a minute." He had everyone turn in their raid gear. "Put that stuff in Tucholski's car, then move it around front. Then keep an eye on the place till we get back. Let's go, you guys. We might as well walk. We won't get a parking place much closer."

He was right. The fire-chasers had parked up everything from Russell on south.

It was bad.

The firemen were still hosing the rubble to cool it. Though most of the brickwork remained standing, the house was a complete loss.

The battalion chief led them around to a basement entrance his men had wrecked. "In there."

Half the wooden parts of the structure had collapsed into the basement, carrying with them furnishings from all three floors. Charred floor joists and wall studs lay tangled like giant pickup sticks. Smoke and steam still rose, and the bricks still held a lot of heat. A man couldn't spend much time close enough to look inside.

There had been cities in Germany and France that had looked like this.

Had Cash not thrown up already, he would have now. Smith did. Iron-gut Tucholski, who claimed to have seen it all, gagged. Hank refused to let Beth close enough to see.

Parts of two bodies, burned till little but steaming skeletons remained, protruded from beneath the wreckage. One seemed to be that of a child.

"Smell's enough to gag a maggot," Hank observed. He held a wet handerchief over his face. To the battalion chief, "How long before you can start digging them out?"

"Going to be a couple hours before we're sure it's cool enough, and that it won't flare up again. And we'll have to scare up a crane… Jesus, it's going to be a job. Somebody really torched it. Whole place must've been soaked down with gas, it went up so fast. We're just lucky this was a corner lot and the one next door was vacant."

"You sure it was arson?"

"Positive. Smell the gas?"

Railsback sniffed. So did Cash. Both wrinkled their noses. The stench of burnt flesh seemed to override all other odors. "Must take a trained sniffer," Cash gasped.

A creak and groan came from above. A half-dozen rafters plunged into the basement, kicking up a cloud of ash.

"Back!" someone shouted. "Get back! The whole damned thing's going."

He was wrong. It was just a chimney, but the crash was enough to scatter the crowd. Hose teams rushed to soak live coals exposed by the falling bricks.

"Better keep your people back, Lieutenant," said the battalion chief. "The whole thing might collapse. Or we might not have the natural gas all the way off… Wish the tourists would go home."

Cash thought they were well behaved. Awe seemed to have held all but the boldest at a safe distance. The youngsters were the troublesome ones.

He and the other officers formed a little skirmish line clique before the ruin, staying out of the fire department's way, asking neighbors their opinions about what had happened. More police, hospital, and civil defense types kept showing up. The arson squad descended like a swarm of locusts.

Ten o'clock came. Railsback and Cash were still there. Annie, Tran, and Tran's sons had done yeoman service running coffee and sandwiches. Tran had even pitched in to help excavate the bodies. The work didn't seem to bother him. Plenty of practice, Cash supposed.

There were four of them. Not enough remained to tell much just by looking, but they seemed, by size, to have been young.

"You know," said Railsback, "I'll bet they're the ones who started it. I been talking to people. They say this Smiley was always having trouble with kids. They might've been going to show him with a little fire that got out of control and trapped them."

"Yeah? Where's all the mothers crying, 'Oh my baby?' The only trouble he had was kids using his yard for a shortcut."

"What kind of guy was he?" Hank asked, watching the last plastic bag disappear into the last ambulance.

"I don't know. What do you mean? I knew him for thirty years, but not very well. He was a private sort of guy. Saw him more at the neighborhood association meetings than any other time."

"I just wondered. Can't tell what it was anymore, but he had a lot of strange stuff in his basement."

Cash shrugged. He hadn't noticed. But he hadn't done much looking. "He says he was a doctor in the old country. I don't think he ever practiced here. Never did anything but hang around his house and go to stamp-club meetings. He was some kind of expert on rare stamps. The whole third floor of his house was filled with stamp albums and books about stamps. Like to drove me crazy talking about it the one time I went over there."

"You see anything strange?"

"No. Except for the stamp collections the house was the same as any other place on the street. I never went in the basement, though."

"Hospital-type stuff. Yeah. That's what it was."

"Now you mention it…" The basement had looked a lot like a ruined intensive care ward.

"Think he might have been in the abortion business before it was legal?"

"Without us ever getting a hint?"

Railsback shrugged. "I'll believe anything anymore. Not much we can do here now. Shit! I forgot about the Old Man. Smith or Tucholski say anything about taking him in?"

"I don't think so." Cash was too tired to think. And he still had to go back to the station for his own car. He handed Hank the keys to the police vehicle. "Why don't you get the car, check on your dad, then pick up me and Beth at my house?" Beth had fled thither after her first glimpse of a burned corpse.

"Okay."

As Cash strolled homeward with Tran, the major asked, "What became of your partner? His wife and your daughter-in-law were at your house when I returned from work. They were upset."

"Oh, I don't need that."

"Pardon?"

"I'm wiped out. I don't think I can cope with Carrie tonight." He quickly explained what he and John had done, and that John had vanished. Just like O'Brien, four hoods, and a twelve-year-old detective.

"And now the woman's disappeared too?"

"Slick. But I got a good idea where she went. Hank gives me fifteen minutes tomorrow, I'll find out for sure. She's got a brother or uncle or something in New York that she doesn't know we know about. She'll go there."

Annie had managed to get rid of Carrie and Nancy somehow. He didn't ask, just collapsed into a chair and listened bemusedly to Beth and Le Quyen, who were carrying on an animated conversation. Friday would be another along day, and during it he would have to tell Carrie the truth.

And Teri, too.

His life was closing in. His job was polluting it, and he was losing his zest.

He didn't get to bed till one, and then only with Hank's hard, "Be in bright and early, Cash!" still ringing in his ears.

XXII. On the Z Axis;