(Continued from the November 2020 issue of Exotic)
"Tell me something good, Dean," Henley said, as he slumped into the cubicle, with phones ringing themselves crazy around him.
"Still just voicemail, sir."
"That damn lunatic has run off the continent. I fucking knew it," he said, before punching the desk and going to get more coffee.
The bra results had come back with nothing and his so-called detective was MIA. He sipped his coffee and for the millionth time regretted the last time he quit smoking.
That damn Crawford. He had been one of the best in the squad, back in the day, before he took up the bottle with purpose and started talking back—saying the wrong words to the wrong people, before those people handed him a box for his personal effects.
Every once in a while, he’d show up out front of the building—after a long night out—barely standing and shouting a very creative array of well-informed obscenities, before being escorted to a cab or the tank. Henley couldn’t blame him, really—this job takes a lot of a person, which was why Crawford had been a good investment in the first place. His life, the bits that could be gleaned from his mottled legal record and late-night phone calls to Henley, in which Crawford would go on at length about nothing in particular—his drink-addled diatribes and sarcasm orbiting a thinly veiled darkness that lay at the center of his insomnia, was complicated and durable. He was a narcissistic masochist— a kind of obsessive paradox of a man— that constantly sought to destroy the only thing he cared about: himself. And, on top of all this was an intelligence, intuition and situational sensitivity that worked to keep him alive in dire moments, gained him access to untouchable places and people and allowed him to just see and do things that no one else could. There was always going to be a final crash, however, and Henley had a sinking feeling that this might be the time that Crawford didn’t get back up.
He considered the dregs in his Styrofoam cup and went back to Dean’s cube.
"What’s Harrison working on?"
"I think he’s on vacation, sir."
"He ever been to Alaska?"
"Sir?"
"Nevermind, let me know when he’s back on the clock."
"Yes, sir."
Henley took the rest of the day off for personal reasons.
Detective Jon Harrison was still hearing the waves sigh against the sand, still seeing the pelicans circle and dive the ocean as he went through security, going back to work the next Monday. The seagulls were still yelling at each other when he sat down at his desk and opened his computer. He felt like sighing with those waves when he opened his email and saw 1,170 unread messages. He went to get coffee and when he came back, Henley was waiting for him.
Harrison considered walking right back out that door, but sucked it up and felt bad for all the little fish whose end was a pelican’s gullet. He unholstered his weapon and said "sir?" as he sipped his coffee. Harrison took his coffee with an obscene amount of sugar, that he would go to his grave believing was reasonable, as addicts and other people of excess eventually bargain themselves into believing. He always had sugar packets crinkled and spilling in his pockets to spike his coffee with, rather than face the incredulous faces of smug baristas and colleagues. Sometimes, he would simply scoop some of the spilled pocket sugar discreetly in his hand and palm it above the cup when no one was looking, rather than go through the process of opening a new packet. After the first few times of doing this, petty things like pocket lint and pubic hair no longer bothered him.
He continued to sip his coffee and waited for Henley to make the first move.
"How was the vacation?" Henley asked, trying his best to sound sincere.
"I’ll tell you Captain, it was strange. I’ve been to the coast countless times in my life, but this time there was something different. The air smelled different, the wind felt different—even the colors. Sometimes, I could swear there was this light hint of blue over everything, like a pastel gauze or something..."
"Great, great. Listen, I know you and Crawford had a kind of thing back in the day."
Harrison sipped more coffee.
"Thing?"
"Oh. you know, partners I guess."
Partners. That was cute. If anyone could say they were Crawford’s "partner," they were either six feet under or six hundred miles away. Why were they talking about Crawford?
"Here’s the thing, Harrison...I, uh, I brought our man in on a case."
"Beg your pardon, sir?"
Henley groaned and sat down.
"I was in a corner Harrison, I swear," he said, leaning over his fat paunch and spreading his palms upward in innocence.
"Uh huh."
"And now..."
"And now, I’m cleaning it up."
Henley’s mustache drooped in resignation briefly, before he regained himself.
"You’re doing what I assign you to do. And, what I’m assigning you to do is find him."
"Find him?"
"Find him."
Harrison sipped some more coffee and his teeth began to ache.
Henley gave him the rundown of the plot so far and there was little of it that tugged at Harrison’s heart strings. A case as cold as a bachelor’s fridge. A Crawford off-leash. It was impossible for an average person to imagine the depths of what Crawford could get into on his own recognizance. And then, here just poor old Harrison, fresh from the coast, to sort it all out. Pelicans were hideous, prehistoric creatures up close, but when they glided along the waves at sunset, they moved like spirits on the water. It had been too cold to go in beyond his ankles, but he had splashed some of the seawater on his face. It did him a world of good at the time.
Harrison headed home as soon as he could tell no one would miss him, with a briefcase full of bullshit. He watched the telephone poles swipe past the window of the train as a visual metronome. He thought about things like the wrinkled bowl of tangerines in the break room no one touched, the single green leaf browned at the edges, now curled on the linoleum tabletop. How long would that leaf last untouched? The air-conditioned break room was a kind of dead leaf mausoleum, where the rate of decay slowed to a point indiscernible. The telephone poles whoosh whooshed by, counting off some kind of distance traveled, some world apart that would never be experienced, but only passed by—only wondered at, as the space between points A and B. Fat lines of graffiti bounced around cement dividers. Occasionally, the train would run parallel to the highway where, for several seconds, a car would pace him—the driver and himself exchanging glances of bewilderment, before their paths diverged as quickly as they met.
Harrison’s apartment was on the second floor of a three-story complex, that had thus far withstood the gentrification circus poling up all around it. It had probably started as a week-by-week motel, until being upgraded with a two-burner electric range and an avocado-colored refrigerator in each unit. Those units now clustered together above the claustrophobic parking lot in an anxious—yet resigned—posture, toward the seemingly inevitable Imminent Domain notice. Harrison patted his pockets, locked the car and wheezed his way up the iron staircase. It had the little oval teeth grip patterns, that tore at the knee and ankle flesh of any tenant or guest unfortunate enough to stumble on their way up. He unlocked the deadbolt, frowned at its ease of turning and went inside, where he had forgotten to leave the A/C on. All of his vacation luggage was half unpacked and sprawled around the living room, sand-making figurines on the anemic carpet. Harrison told himself he was just keeping a little of the beach with him. He dropped everything and grabbed a 20 oz bottle of Diet Coke from the fridge, before plopping down on the sofa and just plain sitting for a while. Sweat seeped all over until the A/C found its footing. He breathed deep and remembered to drink his Coke, instead of taking a nap.
Fucking Crawford. He groaned, set the Coke on the coffee table and retrieved his briefcase in a series of smaller grunts and groans, then pulled out the files. He flopped them down next to the Coke with a flourish of defiance no one would see. He started to brood and glare in the little muggy room all by himself as the A/C whined. It wasn’t fair and things were never easy. Fucking Crawford. It was the first time in his career Harrison had a clear docket and room to breathe, when Crawford first sauntered into his life. Somehow, the guy had made his way up the ranks like a prodigal son and no one could quite say for certain how. There were rumors of him being the one to land Savelle, but anything regarding that fugitive might as well have been cryptid conjecture. What Harrison did know for sure was that Crawford was never once, in their entire time together, even close to being nice to him. He was an asshole. He never missed an opportunity to be an asshole. It was impressive in its endurance. Crawford’s off-hand remarks about Harrison’s gut and lack of shape, the fact that he was always struggling to keep up, etc., had summoned little twitches in Harrison’s brain. Surfacing the faces of all the bullies in his life, from the playground to his parents to his bosses. Harrison had many disorders and Crawford had managed to agitate them all.
He opened the folder of the three Does and flipped through them. Crawford would have started with the girl, so that’s where Harrison started. She was young, blonde and dead as dead—no signs of Alaska from the autopsy photos. He moved on to Jon Doe One— also young, a mess of red curls here and there on the head, where it hadn’t been hacked off with scissors into a sort of mohawk that had no chance of ever being hired, anywhere. Jon Doe Three was a street kid, no doubt about it—long, greasy hair, stick-and-poke face and knuckle tattoos that would require further research, though Harrison had the feeling they didn’t mean anything beyond the usual county jail code. Three dots for suicide watch, a tear for a fallen friend, etc.
Harrison went back to stare at Jane again and picture himself as Crawford staring at Jane. He stared for a while, as the sun went down beyond the blinds, while the A/C complained and the sand moved discreetly—and insidiously—along the carpet from his pacing, tracing a record of his standing and sitting, coming, going and working its way into areas that would remain untouched until the cleaners came, after he was long gone.
