According to a short obituary in the Antelope Valley Press, Paul Alan Scruggs had died suddenly three years ago, after a brief illness. “Brief illness” could mean a lot of things. Buster died after a brief illness. So did Jeremiah Star Trek. And Freda, too, was comatose after just a brief illness. Coincidence or conspiracy?
Or murder, plain and simple.
I caught Bill on his cell driving down the 101 toward police headquarters.
“Administrative meeting downtown,” he groused when I asked what he was up to.
“You don’t sound too excited about it.”
“Let me put it this way: if I could choose between going to a meeting on crime statistics and getting a prostate exam, I’d say ‘Give me the finger, please.’”
“I understand. Let me give you an opportunity to do a good deed, then,” I said.
“You haven’t gotten yourself in trouble, have you?”
“Nothing like that,” I said. “I just need some information about a guy who died out in Lancaster three years back. He was only in his fifties, so I’m guessing they did an autopsy.”
“What’s your interest?”
“The obit says he died after a short illness. I’m thinking there’s more to it than that. I’d like you to talk to the medical examiner who did the autopsy and see if he found anything suspicious.”
Bill said he’d see what he could do.
I took Tank outside and played “climb the tree” with him-a man can only sit cooped up in an office for so long.
Tank must have been an inside cat for the first few years of his life. While he can scoot up just about anything, including tree trunks, he never quite learned how to get down from a tree, so I give him lessons every once in a while. While I had him trapped on a high branch of the eucalyptus, I told him a little bit about Julie.
“You’ll meet her tonight,” I said. “I think you’ll like her. She’s a whiz at opening cans.”
Then I gave the Mustang a bath and buff. As I ran a cloth over the steel wheel hubcaps, I rearranged information in my mind, looking for a pattern, any pattern at all, that made sense. Florio, Barsotti, and O’Flaherty. Key man and Dead Peasant policies. Pigs and Paradise. How did they all connect?
Two hours later, Bill called back.
“What’s the prognosis?” I asked.
“The administration is full of crap, like always,” he said. “But I did get hold of the ME on the other matter.”
“And?”
“And I got nothing.”
“Hmmm,” I said.
I heard a horn honk, and Bill mutter “Asshole” under his breath. I waited. I knew he wasn’t finished with me yet.
“Strangulations. Pig farms. Dead musicians. You going to tell me what this is about, partner?”
“I wish I knew,” I said.
“Any chance we can meet for a beer later?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I’m a busy man.”
“Asshole,” he said again, but this time his voice was smiling.
My phone beeped, indicating another call coming in. I had no idea how to put Bill on hold with this new phone, so I just left him stranded. He’d forgive me. What else are partners for?
A crisp, businesslike female voice said, “Is this Tenzing Norbu?”
I said it was.
“Nancy Myers, Nurse Supervisor at Mercy Hospital. We have an elderly gentleman here named John D. Murphy, and he put you down as both emergency contact and next of kin.”
My stomach lurched. I walked out to my deck, pulling deep mouthfuls of air into my lungs. The brisk voice continued.
“Mr. Murphy has suffered three broken ribs and some facial contusions. He’s doing fine, but we’re going to keep him overnight to make sure things are stable.”
“What happened?”
“Mr. Murphy was attacked by two men this morning, on his way to breakfast, he told me.”
John D attacked? A narrow bolt of energy crackled from my brainpan to my coccyx, and back. Whoa. Down, boy.
“Can I talk to him?”
“He’s champing at the bit. I’ll put him on.”
“Hey, Ten.” John D’s normally gruff voice sounded weak and constricted.
“John D, what the hell? Are you okay?”
“Fine as frog fuzz,” he said. “It only hurts when I breathe.”
I felt the muscles in my belly relax slightly. I told him I was glad he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
“If I ever lose that, just shoot me,” he said.
“I’ll have them put an addendum on your DNR,” I said, which triggered a couple of wheeze-chuckles from the other end of the phone.
“I gotta get out of here before they get me hooked on drugs,” he said. “I keep just saying no, but nobody’s listening.”
Classic John D.
“Do you need me there? Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Well … they say they’re gonna let me go tomorrow, so long as I don’t drive. If you got nothing better to do, how ’bout giving me a lift home?”
“You got it,” I said. He put me back on with the nurse for the particulars.
After I hung up, the air whooshed out of my lungs, which told me how long and hard I’d been holding on to it. I did a body-check and soon located the high-pitched sizzle in my ears and clenched muscles in my upper back that signaled I was still really angry. I tried taking a few long, deep breaths to disseminate the rage. I had to think clearly. Fight or flight is fine, but not when I need the tool of reason.
I didn’t waste a moment wondering whether the mugging of John D was another coincidence. Too many things were stacking up; something was going on, even if I didn’t know what. Yet.
I paced around my deck, under the watchful eye of Tank, perched on the railing. Fucking cowards, jumping an old man like that. I’m going to find you and kick your scrawny little …
Okay, pacing wasn’t doing it for me either; I needed to burn off the excess energy still sputtering in me, orphan sparks left over from the original bolt of lightning at the news.
I went out to the garage and fired up the Mustang. I pushed it hard, savoring its deep-throated roar on a high-speed run all the way to the ocean. As I took the curves, there was so much cornering force the idiot light came on and the gauge wavered, from oil surging in the sump.
I parked in the public lot and climbed over the dunes to the beach. I kicked off my shoes and executed a long series of 50-yard wind sprints up and down the beach. I ran until my lungs screamed and sweat poured off me in rivulets, and then I ran some more. Stripping to my boxers, I took my final sprint right into the waves, and swam through the frigid water, gasping at the cold. Then I stood under the hard spray of the open-air shower until my skin was fizzing. Better.
I spread out a towel and lay on my back. The afternoon sun flashed gold against my closed eyelids. As my skin warmed, I listened to the beach sounds all around me. The grunts and cheers from a nearby volleyball game. The happy squeals of children, mingled with the drone of an overhead airplane.
Another body-check. Physical exertion had blown most of the anger right out of me. Then I checked in with my mind: it still felt hardened, and in need of repair. My deep attachment to John D had taken me on a direct skid into violent thoughts of revenge on his attackers. Rage might make me feel temporarily powerful, but in the long run it weakened me, and clouded my thinking. I needed to find equanimity toward my enemies, as well as my friends, to be effective.
I breathed in and out. I let my connection, my concern for John D, soften this time, into compassion. I let the feeling of compassion grow, ripple outward from the personal to the universal. My heart opened a crack, and the bittersweet nectar of loving-kindness spilled out, spreading to include the playing children, the calling gulls, and, finally, the men who had harmed my friend out of their own ignorance. The last vestiges of hatred dispersed into emptiness, like a cloud dissolving into pure, unblemished sky. I felt peace.