Steel Breeze (5 page)

Same
as always, only this time it felt different.

Chapter 5

Desmond drove.
He didn’t have a destination in mind, but neither was he ready to head home
just yet. All he knew was that he wanted to get Lucas away from the police
station parking lot before Phil, Karen, and their lawyer left the building. From
the backseat, Lucas was chattering about all manner of trivia, with a few
relevant questions mixed in, questions that Desmond also wanted answers to. It
was always harder to think clearly with a toddler volleying repetitive queries
from the back seat, so after answering a few, Desmond reached for the CD wallet
in the glove box. “Lucas, you want to listen to your favorite songs?”

“Yeah.
‘Let It Be,’ Daddy. Play ‘Let It Be.’”

Desmond
jabbed the power button on the radio. It came on midway through one of those
acoustic songs by Billy Moon that somehow sounded even more haunted than it
would have if the singer hadn’t jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge shortly
after recording it. Desmond cut it off by feeding the Beatles disc into the
slot.

“Twelve,
Daddy. Track twelve.”

“I
know, buddy, I know.” It was a
Best Of
collection, and Lucas had
memorized all of the track numbers. ‘Let It Be’ was a favorite; Lucas even
tried to sing along to it. Desmond knew that the main reason the boy had
latched onto that particular song was because he loved to watch the track
numbers come up on the display and had become fascinated with the number twelve
ever since Desmond had pointed out its prevalence: on clocks and calendars, in
boxes of donuts and cartons of eggs. Lucas wasn’t in school yet, but he had a
big appetite for information. Sometimes Desmond worried that by the time the
kid got to kindergarten, he would already be pegged as a geek, chattering about
twelve-based systems having their origin in the Babylonian zodiac. It was
probably an unfortunate side effect of having a writer for a single parent.

In
time, Desmond became aware that he was driving out toward the southeastern edge
of town. If he didn’t change course the road would lead him to the strip mall,
beyond which a wooded hill sloped down to a derelict railroad track and the
riverbank where the town’s homeless had encamped before the police discovered
Sandy’s murder weapon in the tent of a deranged vagabond.

Maybe
he should have thought things through before coming out here. He couldn’t just
go poking around on the trail in search of stragglers with Lucas in tow. According
to the local paper, the camp had been cleared out by the police after the
murder. A few small articles profiling the tribe of destitute wayfarers had
seen print around the time of Harwood’s arrest, and again during his trial—the
sort of press that causes a stir around a threat already gone. The chances of
the same camp producing another psycho were slim, but the surrounding community
had wanted them out. So the cops had trucked all of the weather-stained
furniture to the town dump and set about patrolling the river bank periodically
for a while, shooing away or arresting any squatters they found until they
could say with some confidence that the untouchables had been vanquished. To
where, who knew? Maybe some were now spending their nights in barns and sheds
in the backyards of the same people who had wanted them flushed down the social
drain in the first place, like a piss stain hosed off a concrete wall.

Desmond
figured most of them would have reconvened on the old turf sooner or later,
after public attention had shifted elsewhere. People, even those without jobs
or homes, were creatures of habit.

There
was plenty of parking available in the shopping center when Desmond pulled the
car in. The Aikido studio at the end of the strip wouldn’t get busy until school
let out. Apparently a recent spate of school bullying cases had resulted in a
rise in enrollment. Desmond had read about it in
The Tribune
and was
reminded of the last time he’d seen Sensei Salerno in the news, during the blur
of pain and confusion and autumn rain that had surrounded Sandy’s death.

Salerno
had been one of the only people who knew the suspect’s name. He came forward
early in the investigation, admitting that he sometimes spoke with Greg Harwood
during walks he took in the woods between classes, along the old rail trail. If
Desmond remembered correctly, the paper had quoted the Aikido instructor as
being “shocked” by the allegations brought against the man, whom he had
perceived as a “gentle, if troubled soul.” The reporters had made much of the
fact that only the proprietor of a self-defense studio had any business
wandering alone in those woods and then moved on to other locals who claimed to
have seen Greg Harwood dumpster-diving and staring lewdly at women around the
parking lot.

Desmond
chose a space close to the dojo, in the shade of a tree. He would be able to
see the car from the entrance, but he didn’t want to unbuckle Lucas from his
seat until he knew the place was open. Ushering the boy across the lot and back
just to rebuckle him while he fussed would hardly be worth it if he found the
front door of the dojo locked, the place closed.

“Listen, Lucas, you see that door right there with
the white letters on it? I have to run over there and see if it's open. Can you
wait for me? I'll be right back.”

“I want come.”

“You can watch me the whole time, okay? If it's
open, you can come in with me.”

Lucas gave him a skeptical look that reminded
Desmond far too much of Sandy. He had her deep brown eyes.

“Tell you what. If you say the alphabet slowly,
I'll be back before you get to Z, okay?”

Lucas shook his head.

“I'll be right over there.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes, buddy?”

“What if the man with the mad face comes?”

Desmond
felt a chill ripple over his skin like a low-grade electrical charge. “Okay, buddy…we'll
go together.”

When
they reached the door, Desmond pulled on the handle and was surprised to feel
no resistance; it swung open on an unlit, vacant room. Ambient sunlight from
the storefront windows scattered across blue mats that covered most of the
floor. The only decorative items were a framed photo of an old man with a wispy
white beard, and a calligraphy scroll hanging at the front of the room above a
low shelf upon which a bowl of fine white powder—possibly sand—and a few smooth
river rocks rested beside a wooden sword. On the far side of the room were a
pair of locker room doors (his and hers) and a dark blue curtain, drawn aside,
allowing light to spill out of the room beyond it.

Opening
the front door had caused a string of chimes to sound, and as their bright
reflections rolled across the empty room like a bag of spilled marbles, Lucas
let go of Desmond’s hand and, seeing the expanse of blue‐padded floor, took off
at a run just for the sheer joy of racing through an obstacle-free zone. “
Lucas!
Wait!”
Desmond commanded in his fiercest whisper-yell. Lucas looked back,
and Desmond pointed at a pair of shoes on a carpet runner by the door. He
reeled his son back in with two wagging fingers. “Take your sneakers off,” he
said as he pinched the heel of his own left sneaker with the toe of his right
and stepped out of it.

A
figure appeared in the doorway of the curtained-off room, a large man with a
goatee, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt with writing too faded to read. Sensei
Salerno. Desmond recognized him from the news, and—judging by the way the man’s
face changed in an instant—it was mutual. Whenever strangers recognized Desmond,
he always hoped it was because of his books, but this close to home it was
almost always because of Sandy’s murder.

“Hello
there, friend.” Salerno said. “How may I help you?”

“My
name is Desmond Carmichael, and this is my son, Lucas.”

“Hello,
Lucas, I’m Peter. But if you’re here to sign up for the kids’ Aikido class, you’ll
call me Sensei. Did you want some information about the classes?”

“Actually,
no…I was hoping I might ask you a few questions, if you have a minute, about
Greg Harwood.”

Salerno
sighed. “I thought that might be what brought you here. I knew your name before
you told me.”

“And
you knew Harwood?”

Salerno
looked down at Lucas and nodded. “There’s not much to tell. I didn’t know him
that well.”

“You
knew him well enough to think he wasn’t guilty.”

“Sir,
I’m not sure we should be having this kind of adult conversation….”

“I’m
pretty good at leaving certain words out.”

Salerno
walked to the front door and turned the lock. He raised his index finger as he
crossed the room:
just a minute
. He ducked behind one of the curtains
and reappeared with a giant green fitness ball. Desmond felt the bottom of his
stomach drop out. The sight of the ball hit him as hard as if Salerno had
emerged from behind the curtain holding a sword. It was always the little
things that still messed him up in a heartbeat, ordinary things. He knew people
used the balls for yoga and the like, but they would only ever remind him of
the hours Sandy had spent bouncing on one both before and after Lucas was born.
He thought of it as a kind of pregnant lady’s throne that provided relief while
carrying a child and then helped to lull the same child to sleep after birth. Desmond
had himself logged his share of late night hours on the ball, praying that he
wouldn’t fall asleep before Lucas did and roll off the damned thing, dropping
his newborn son to the floor.

Salerno
bounced the enormous green orb against the floor like a giant basketball. The
sound reverberated with a metallic ring. “Lucas, how would you like to roll
this ball around the room while I talk to your father in my office?”

Lucas
smiled and looked at Desmond.

“Go
ahead, kiddo. Have fun. Just stay on the blue mats.”

Lucas
ran to the ball, collided with it, and laughed. He could barely get enough of
his arms around it to lift it, and when he did, he disappeared behind it. Desmond
felt his grief breaking under the comical sight of the giant ball running
across the room on stubby legs and stocking feet. Salerno was smiling too, as
he held the curtain aside for Desmond.

Inside
the office a wide, paper-cluttered desk with an outdated PC occupied one wall. Black-and-white
photos and tournament posters hung above it. Another wall held racks of wooden
swords and staves of various sizes and hues. Padded gloves and scuffed up
pieces of body armor spilled over the edges of a crate in the corner. Salerno
settled into his office chair beside the desk and gestured for Desmond to choose
one of the folding chairs across from his.

“Why
are you here, Mr. Carmichael? What do you hope to accomplish?”

“Call
me Desmond, please. I haven’t been Mr. Carmichael since I lost my teaching
job.”

Salerno
allowed the silence to spread, placing the burden of conversation on his
visitor. At last, Desmond said, “Between you and me, I’m beginning to think the
police may have pinned my wife’s murder on the wrong man. Since you knew him,
I’d like to know why you thought he was innocent.”

“I
don’t know if he’s innocent or guilty. I’ve never said one way or the other.”

“I
saw you on TV after they arrested him. You looked incredulous, to say the
least.”

“The
news took me by surprise, sure. But we don’t always know what people are
capable of, do we? That’s a fact that has probably kept me in business.”

“So
Harwood didn’t strike you as the violent type? The prosecution had a lot to say
about a history of mental instability.”

“He
had problems, yes. Most homeless people have serious problems. If it isn’t
substance abuse or PTSD, it’s usually something like schizophrenia.”

“Which
was it for him?”

“I
don’t know his history, maybe a combination. If you attended the trial, you
probably know a lot more than I do.”

“But
you interacted with him…how often?”

“I’d
see him hanging around behind the building sometimes, rooting through the
dumpster. I never actually spoke to him until one day when he filched a bo
staff from the dojo while the students were in the changing room.”

“What’s
a bo staff?”

“One
of these.” Salerno waved at the wall of wooden rods. Some were adorned with
dragon graphics, but most looked like simple oak or mahogany dowels. “We use
them as training weapons. The staff Harwood stole belonged to a young student
who didn’t have much money to replace it. I felt responsible. I could have
given the kid one of my own staves, but the theft became sort of a watershed
moment for the class. If someone could just wander in and violate our safe
place, the place where we were learning how to deal with conflict in a direct
and upright way…well, I said I would get it back, so I went to the camp and
asked for it.”

“And
Harwood admitted taking it?”

“I
knew they were desperate people, and I wanted to resolve things peacefully, so
I offered a twenty dollar reward for the staff. It probably retailed for
thirty.”