FATHER'S DAY - NOVEL - EPISODE FIVE

Hey Blogsphere Folks: Father's Day - the novel - is the source material for the feature film being produced by my production company. Hope you enjoy reading Earl's story.
...And please check out the exciting trailer - starring the amazing John Billlingsley (Star Trek, 2012, Hawaii Five-O) for the film HERE

FATHER’S DAY

Written by: James M. Russell

Copyright 2015© James M. Russell

CHAPTER 37:

On weekends, the Timmins usually sat for supper around five. Wanda said that eating earlier allowed Earl’s body more time to metabolize the sugars before he went to bed. ‘Metabolise’ was the doctor’s word, but Wanda liked it.

It was nearly 5:03 when Wanda pulled the tuna casserole from the oven and set it on the table to cool.

The carrots were ready and the potatoes just needed to be mashed. Wanda loved cooking. All the McCarthy women, and some of the men too, knew their way around the kitchen. Wanda learned all the traditional Irish dishes like soda bread, coddle, and champ from her mother’s Irish side of the family, and learned to make a mean quiche and a decent veal flambé from her father’s French side. Earl, sadly, was mostly a meat and potato man, so she didn’t get much opportunity to whip up anything more exotic than, well, meat and potatoes. Once in a while she would find a recipe in the Oprah magazine or Good Housekeeping that would excite her, but chances were that her masterpiece would either end up in a lost corner of the back porch freezer or on her lunch plate for the next five days or so.

Still, Wanda was happy. Happy with her marriage, happy with her home, happy with the way things had turned out in general. Standing in the kitchen looking out the window at the orange and black Monarch butterfly hovering above her gardenias, she was especially happy that Ian was finally out of that awful place. Happy that her son was home safe. 

“Did I sleep long?” Earl asked as he shuffled into the kitchen and collapsed into his usual chair at the table.

Wanda worried about her husband. He wasn’t getting any better, health wise, even though he pretty well stuck to his diet. Because Earl’s father great-grandfather both had diabetes, the doctor said that there was wasn’t much she or Earl could have done to prevent the onset of the disease. Although her friend Cheryl, who had a low opinion of the medical profession, said when Wanda recounted the doctor’s words, “Nonsense! Diabetes has more to do with poor food choices and lack of exercise than heredity.”

“About an hour. How do you feel?”

Earl was about to answer when he noticed the table and his face broke into a quizzical frown. Besides the plate and silverware set in front of him and Wanda’s setting, there was a third set of eating utensils.

Just then, Ian breezed through the door, wearing a long-sleeved checked shirt and blue jeans, enough to cover most of his wounds. Earl turned in his chair and followed Ian with his eyes until he sat at the opposite end of the table.

“When did you get home?”

Wanda turned and looked apologetically at Earl, “I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“What happened to your face?”

“Some kids jumped me the other night and worked me over.”

“Sweet Jesus. The other night? Where? Did you call the police?”

“Naw. It's nothin’. Just a misunderstanding.”

“I went looking for you.”

“Yep, Mom told me.”

“Are you OK? Where did you spend the night?”

“With some friends.”

“Well. Next time Son, call us an….”

Earl and Wanda both jumped with fright when Ian slammed his glass to the table.

“This ain't a prison is it?”

Wanda hurried from the stove and laid her arm across Ian’s shoulder.

“Of course not, Honey. It's just that your father and I were worried that...”

Earl held out his hand to silence Wanda.

“No, no. That’s not the point. The police came to talk to you about that boy who died last night. We had to tell them that we didn’t know where you were. That’s not right. Living at home was a condition of your parole. Mr. Fuller told us. You were sitting right there. He said that we always need to know where you are.”

“You want to me to bend over and spread 'em so you can search for weapons?”

Earl bellowed in anger, “Ian! Don't you try me!”

Ian was so surprised by his father’s burst of fury that he slid back in his chair and lapsed into a stunned silence. Wanda’s stomach knotted, her eyes watered as she hurried to the sink and resumed mashing the potatoes. She knew that Ian had a temper but to her knowledge, her husband hadn’t raised his voice since May 3, 1990. The day he buried his mother.

-----------

Leola Fess Timmins was a tall, statuesque woman with black shoulder-length hair and a quiet laugh. Wanda was nine when she first spoke to Mrs. Timmins; actually, it was Mrs. Timmins who spoke first, asking, “Are you OK, dear?”

Mrs. Timmins called all the kids “dear.” Wanda had seen Earl’s mother before, of course. Mrs. Timmins was one of the yard monitors that watched the kids during morning and afternoon recess. The three monitors didn’t have a lot to do except break up the occasional fight, always the boys, or correct a student’s diction, always the girls. Wanda was probably the quietest kid at Fern Avenue Elementary School, so none of the yard monitors ever needed to speak to her, not until the day a man tried to abduct her friend Denise McDonald.

Wanda and Denise were standing a couple of feet from the south side school gate when a long-haired man appeared from out of nowhere and grabbed the first kid he could get his hands on, which was Denise.

There were no electronic locks on the gates and doors back then.

Now every school in L.A. County has them.

Civil lawyers!

Anyway, when the longhaired guy grabbed Denise and tried to pull her through the open gate and into a panel van parked at the curb, Wanda got a hold of her friend’s sweater and she and Denise screamed at the top of their lungs. Mrs. Timmins began racing toward them, weaving her way through the crowd of kids and waving her fists like a wild woman. The long-haired man must have figured that he wasn’t going to get away with what ever he had planned to do, so he suddenly let go of Denise, jumped back into his van and drove away with the tires squealing. Mrs. Timmins burst through the school fence and continued running down the street after the van. She ran all the way up Elm to Torrance Boulevard then kept going as the van turned right and sped down the street. Wanda had never seen a grown-up run that fast, or far.

    All the kids crowded around Denise and Wanda wanting to know what had happened but before either of them had a chance to say a word, the principal, ‘Prune Face’ Pritchard, appeared out of nowhere and ushered the two of them straight into her office. Denise and Wanda were just sitting there when Mrs. Timmins, sweaty and out of breath, rushed into the office. She told the principal that she wasn’t able to catch up to the van, but about two hours later the word began to spread around the school that the police had arrested the guy about a mile away.

    Mrs. Timmins asked Wanda and Denise about four hundred times if they were OK and each time they answered, “We’re fine.” In fact, Denise didn’t understand why everyone was making such a big deal of the whole thing, and just wanted to go back to class. But Wanda guessed that Denise’s parents were pretty upset because Denise didn’t come to school the next day, or ever again. Daniel Mars told Wanda that he heard that the whole family moved to Sacramento and put Denise into a private school.

    After that incident, Mrs. Timmins became Wanda’s playground ‘Mother,’ and always kept a close eye on her.

The L.A. Times newspaper published a story about the incident in the next day’s paper.  They even mentioned Mrs. Timmins.

    Wanda figured that most of the things she loved about her husband he’d inherited from his mother.

    Romantic, kind, gentle, intelligent, funny.

    And of course, a love of chocolate malts.

    For years, Earl and his mother had a routine. Every Sunday after church the two of them would drop off Mr. Timmins at home and head off to the Foster’s Freeze, at the corner of Cravens Avenue and Torrance, for their weekly appointment with the milky concoction. It was a tradition they continued right up to the time Earl and Wanda got married. Stopping was Mrs. Timmins idea.

    “For everything there is a season,” she told Earl.

    Over the years, Earl and Wanda would occasionally stop at a Foster’s Freeze but Earl was always disappointed.

    He said the chocolate malts just didn’t taste the same.

    About fifteen years ago, Earl lost two of the loves of his life when, first he was diagnosed with Type II diabetes and had to give up malts completely, then, a few months later, when his mother killed herself.

Of all the things that Mrs. Timmins loved, growing old wasn’t one of them. So, on the morning of her seventy-fourth birthday, she showered, brushed her hair, dressed in her favorite satin nightgown, put a Frank Sinatra tape into the stereo then laid down on her bed and shot herself through the heart with a small caliber pistol.

The funeral had gone as well as could be expected. It was a simple graveside ceremony; a small group of friends shed tears and hugged. Rev. Oggy James, the pop singer, turned minister, read the eulogy. When Earl and Wanda arrived home from the funeral, there was a message on their answering machine from Miss Leila at the Los Angeles County Morgue.

The morgue was located near the intersection of Zonal and Mission in a commercial section of downtown Los Angeles. Wanda followed close behind Earl as he walked through the open door to the property room. The four walls of the ten-by-ten room were bare but for a faded black and white aerial photo of downtown attached with brass screws to the north wall. Earl walked straight up to the window marked ‘Clerk’.

“Yes, may I help you?” the middle-aged woman asked perfunctorily, her husky voice booming from the cheap speaker mounted on the ceiling. Wanda wondered why the woman was sweating so heavily but given her bulk it was probably an exercise just balancing her massive upper body atop the government-issued stool.

Earl leaned in close to the glass-mounted microphone. “My name is Earl Timmins; you called me about picking up my mother’s things. Her name was…is…Leola Timmins.”

The sweating woman scanned through a list attached to her metal clipboard resting on the counter in front of her until she found what she was looking for. She stood with difficulty then disappeared from sight for a minute or two before returning with a brown, padded 8 ½ x 11 envelope that had Mrs. Timmins’s name written in black with a felt marker. Once she had repositioned herself on the stool, the sweaty woman ripped open the envelope and dumped a Ruger .22 semi-automatic pistol onto the counter. Earl stood up straight, his body stiffened. Earl’s father had always said that hand guns were only designed for one thing -- killing people.

Earl grew up sharing his father’s dislike of them.

This gun, looking shiny and new, had killed his mother and he hated it for that.

Wanda laid her hand on her husband’s shoulder, just to remind him that she was there.

The sweaty woman pulled an official looking document from within the envelope and read what was printed on it.

“One Ruger handgun and one gold ring.”

The sweaty woman’s hand dove into the envelope, and after searching the corners, pulled out Mrs. Timmins’s wedding ring and set it roughly on the counter.

“And one gold ring. Sign here please.”

“I don’t want that!” Earl said, pointed at the gun.

“The pistol belonged to your mother.”

Earl grabbed the release and scribbled his name at the bottom.

 “You have to take it.”

The sweaty woman had just placed the ring back into the envelope and was about to insert the Ruger as well when Earl reached through the small rectangular hole cut in the Plexiglas window, snatched the envelope out of the sweaty woman’s hands and bellowed, “I SAID NO!”

That was the last time Wanda heard Earl raise his voice.

-----------

Long after Earl’s angry words finished reverberating off the kitchen walls, the three of them continued to sit in heavy silence while their thoughts raced.

Finally, Ian stood, accidentally tipping over his chair, then turned to his mother for support. But when he was unable to make eye contact, he stormed out of the kitchen.

“Guess I could make the potatoes Au Gratin instead of mashed. What do you think?”

But Earl didn’t answer, nor did he move and after staring at him for a nearly a full minute, she began to wonder whether he had fallen asleep at the table, as he occasionally did.

“It doesn’t bother you that he broke the rules of his parole?” Earl finally said, his face still buried in his hands.

“It was wrong. Of course, it was wrong. But I’m sure that Ian is sorry. He’s been locked up like an animal for four years.

“Four years”!

“He just went out on the town. That’s all.”

“You sure that’s all he did?”

“Could you intentionally kill anybody, Earl Timmins? Could I? Of course not. And neither could our child. He’s our flesh and blood and deep down you know that he could not possibly have done the terrible things the police think he did. Right?”

“I don’t know Wanda.”

“Earl Timmins, can you look me in the eye and tell me that you really think that our Ian had anything to do with that poor boy’s death?”

Earl took a long time to answer but eventually he had to admit, “No.”

“Of course you don’t.”

38:

Mr. Ferguson didn’t like guns. But he didn’t dislike them either. He figured that they were just a tool. A mechanical device that served a purpose. In his fifty-eight years of life on the planet, however, he never before had a purpose that required a gun.  He had a purpose now and a gun, which was why Mr. Ferguson found himself in Inglewood, parked on a side street off West Manchester, just around the corner from the Beaches Firing Range and Gun Club. 

Mr. Ferguson was there because he needed to prepare for his task.

The firing range’s miniscule lot was already full so he parked on a side street. Mr. Ferguson fed the meter two-quarters, which gave him an hour. Plenty of time figured to gain some understanding of how the 1911 worked, its character, and peculiarities.

The front entrance of the Beaches Firing Range consisted of a small, rectangular room with a window built into the wall. From behind the thick glass, a young man in his early thirties watched as Mr. Ferguson opened the front door and entered. “What can I do for you?” the man’s voice crackled through the small speaker mounted above the window.

“Target practice please.”

CHAPTER 39:

Wanda kept a respectful distance as she followed Earl down the hallway toward Ian’s room. She thought it curious that he tiptoed as if he didn’t want to wake anyone, but no one was asleep. When Earl reached Ian’s bedroom door, he glanced back down the hall at Wanda then knocked twice. There was no response so he knocked twice again, this time a little louder. Again, nothing, so Earl leaned close to the door and called out, “Son?”

From within the room, Ian’s voice oozed defiance. “Yeah.”

“Can we talk for a minute?”

“Yeah.”

Earl stood motionless at the partially open door waiting for Ian to invite him in, but Ian never did so Earl finally just pushed the door open and entered anyway.

Ian was sitting on his bed, a magazine open in his hands. He didn’t look up when Earl entered but instead continued to flip the pages, glancing briefly at the glossy photo of some exotic car before turning the page to yet another picture.

Earl could have walked up to Ian’s bed and sat beside him, Wanda was hoping that he would, but instead he stopped and continued to hold onto the doorknob for support.

”Sorry, I lost my temper, Son.”

“It's OK.”

“We need to call that detective. I have his card in my…”

“Can we do it in the morning Dad? I’m really tired.”

“Suppose so. Sure. Morning’s soon enough. Say, remember when we used to make those funny-shaped wooden candle stick holders? Maybe tomorrow afternoon we could go down to the workshop and do up a couple for presents? Christmas is just around the corner.”

“It’s June.”.

“That’s what I mean. Just around the corner.”

“Sure Dad.”

“Great! Well…”

Earl turned to leave but stopped when he noticed a saucer on the floor of Ian’s room. On it was a half eaten sandwich.

“See you in the morning. An’ don’t forget to clean up your dishes before you go to bed.”

Wanda watched as Earl backed out of Ian’s room and gently closed the door. She and her husband locked eyes, then both smiled apprehensively.

------------

Wanda knew it was late, but she wanted to finish preparing the quart of string beans she’d bought that afternoon at the grocery store.

She had tried to get Earl to go to bed, but he insisted on keeping her company. Although she had caught him with his eyes closed while he sat at the kitchen table pretending to read the newspaper.

The ringing phone startled her and woke Earl.

Both glanced at the wall clock.

    “Now who could be calling so late at night?” she said, more to herself than him.

Earl struggled to stand, but Wanda had already set down her paring knife and was halfway across the kitchen.

“Stay put. I'll get it.”

Wanda lifted the receiver and brought it slowly to her ear. The first thing she noticed was the unmistakable roar of passing cars and trucks. Then the caller, a man she guessed, cleared his throat.

“Hello?” Wanda asked.

The caller spoke slowly and clearly, “May I speak to Ian, please.”

Wanda didn’t recognize the man’s voice, and she didn’t like it either. The caller sounded official, like a policeman or something. She decided immediately that there was no way she was going to let him speak to her son, not at that hour.

“Er yes. May I say who is calling?”

“A friend.”

Earl pointed toward himself, but Wanda shook her head and instead raised her eyes toward the second floor. The moment Earl stood she cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and said in a pleading tone, “Earl don’t…” But by then her husband had already started up the stairs.

Wanda straightened her posture, cleared her throat and spoke with a stern tone.

    “I’m afraid that Ian’s asleep. Would you like to leave your name and number and I’ll ask him to…”

Just then the line went died, leaving Wanda with nothing but dead air.

------------

Just as Mr. Ferguson returned the receiver to its cradle, a car pulled into the 7-11 parking lot, sweeping its headlights across the front of the store and Mr. Ferguson, who stood at the only pay phone. He kept his back to the street until the driver entered the store.

Mr. Ferguson had thought of everything.

Pay phone instead of his cell or home line.

Dark, nondescript clothing.

Coins for the call, instead of a phone card.

He even parked a half block down the street, just in case the 7-11 had video surveillance cameras outside.

Residents of California may carry a gun in their motor vehicle as long as it is stored in plain sight, in a locked container.

The gun must be unloaded.

The ammunition kept separate.

Mr. Ferguson had never knowingly broken a law in his life, so naturally, he complied fully with the legislation.

The unloaded 1911 was locked in a secure container.

The key for the container was in the vehicle’s ashtray.

The ammunition was in the glove compartment.

After climbing back into his SUV, Mr. Ferguson waited for the timed interior light to extinguish before removing the tiny, gold-colored key from his ashtray.

It took a mere quarter to open the zippered pouch, made of nothing but cloth and foam but nevertheless meeting the definition of a ‘locked container’ as laid out in California Penal Code, Section 12026. He unzipped the pouch only enough to allow him to wrap his fingers around the grip of the 1911 and pull it free.

The magazine, which he had preloaded with the seven Max bullets, slid easily it into the grip and snapped it into place with a tap of the heel of his left hand. The death machine became operational when Mr. Ferguson jerked back the slide then released it, slamming the first Max shell into the 1911’s chamber.

Mr. Ferguson was now in clear violation of the California Penal Code.

----------

Earl was breathing heavily by the time he reached the top of the stairs. He knocked boldly on Ian’s door.

 “Ian? Telephone.” Then knocked again before shouting “Ian!”

Earl waited a moment then turned the doorknob and quietly entered the dark, silent room.

“Ian?”

----------

Mr. Ferguson spotted the police car the moment he turned onto Arlington.

On a neighborhood street lined with fuel-efficient compacts of various nationalities, the V-8 Crown Vic, a monument to environmental excess, stood out like an Irishman at an Orange Parade. 

Driving past the Crown Vic, he was fairly certain that the two silhouetted figures sitting in the front seat were Detectives Wallish and Mathison.

Mr. Ferguson turned right at the first cross street then parked between two delivery vans. With virtually no trees or hedges to shield him from the police officers’ view, Mr. Ferguson was forced to admit that the only way of reaching the Timmins’s house without being seen by the detectives was through the seven or so back yards that separated him from his destination.

The first back yard was easy, flat and paved, it was the parking area for the residents of a low-rise apartment building. The fence that separated it from the next backyard was four feet high and chain link but, fortunately, a pile of used tires provided a convenient stepping platform.

Every square inch of the second backyard had been planted with lettuce and Mr. Ferguson struggled to find his footing in the deep earthen trenches that ran the full length of the back yard.

The third and forth yards were each smooth, even-expanses of well-maintained grass. The fences between them were either low chain-link or the sturdy, wooden variety. Mr. Ferguson had little difficulty climbing all but the one that separated yards four and five. That fence was high and wobbly and it took more than a minute before he managed to haul himself up to the weathered one-by-two nailed to the top. His leap to the ground was clumsy and ill-timed, the pain immediate and recognizable.

He had twisted his right ankle.

How badly he didn’t know.

A guttural, angry growl, however, drew his attention away from his pain. Mr. Ferguson couldn’t see the dog, the backyard was a mass of shadow, but he knew that it stood somewhere to his left. He had two choices: he could remain where he was and try to establish a rapport with the beast or he could make a run for it.

He ran.

Mr. Ferguson was quick, but not quick enough because as he dove over the next fence the dog caught his right leg in its jaws. There was no pain, only the discomfort of something squeezing his calf, but Mr. Ferguson had momentum on his side and the dog couldn’t maintain its grip.

Mr. Ferguson hit the ground belly first and slid on the damp, foot-high grass. The dog barked twice more, growled with disappointment, then fell silent. Mr. Ferguson stood, then limped to the last fence, a six-foot high, concrete block structure with not a single handhold, or ladder, or grappling hook and rope in sight.

He decided to go around it.

The Southern California version of the Berlin Wall ended, as he had expected, near the front of the house. Unfortunately, walking around it would put him in full view of the street and the two detectives, so he waited.

 And waited.

And waited.

Finally, a car turned onto Arlington and as soon as it passed between him and the detectives, he dashed across the Timmins’s soft, well-watered lawn and plunged into the dark passageway that led down the side of their house to the family room window. He had made a calculated guess that the houses in that area of town would likely have the older, single-paned type of window. He was right. The glasscutter was the best that he could buy at the local Home Depot. The suction cup, which he attached to the section of cut glass to prevent it from falling, was from one of his daughter’s old science kits. He had no trouble reaching the window latch on the inside.

----------

 “He's not in his room Wanda!"

 Then he noticed that the receiver was back on its cradle.

 “You hung up?”

“Not me. He did when I offered to take a message. The rude man said he was a friend. My heavens! Ian doesn't need friends with so few manners!”

Wanda paused to watch Earl. He didn’t look good. His lips were bluish, his skin pale and his whole body seemed to be hanging lifelessly from his bones.

“I’m going out to find him.”

But even as he pushed away from the chair and turned, Wanda’s voice shot out clear and strong. “Earl Timmins! You’ll do nothing of the sort! Now sit down please before one of us has a heart attack, you from your condition and me from worry!”

“Well, where did he go?”

“I don’t know Earl. Probably a movie, or concert, or... ”

“What was the name of that bar Ian was so fond of?”

“Oh, I think that place closed years ago. Come on, bedtime.”

Earl sighed deeply then took a few moments to think.

    “OK. But give me a couple of minutes. I need to check the clamps on the dresser drawers.”

    “Remember what Doctor Wong said. You need at least….”

    “Just ten minutes, Babes, please.”

    Wanda was too tired to argue and, anyway, ten minutes wouldn’t make much difference one way or the other. 

    Wanda trudged slowly past Earl and laid her hand on his shoulder.

    “I’ll set out your PJs.”

    “Thanks, Babes.”

    When she had already started climbing the stairs, a movement, coming from the family room, suddenly caught her eye.

“Did you open the window in the family room Earl?... Earl?”

“Yes, earlier to shoo out a fly, but I closed it after.”

Wanda smiled. Of course, Earl would never have just killed the stupid fly; he had to let it out. And, being a man, he left the window open.

Wanda hurried into the family room, fearful that a June bug or even a bat might fly in, and shut the window with a soft bang.

----------

Mr. Ferguson hadn’t really given much thought to the kid’s parents.

He meant them no harm of course.

It was their son he wanted.

Still, he had to be careful; if the kid was capable of murder, then why not the parents too? So when the woman, who he assumed was the kid’s mother, rushed into the family room to close it, he crouched behind the easy chair but kept the 1911 pointed in her direction.

It was stupid of him to leave the window open, any professional burglar would know to cover his tracks; but Mr. Ferguson was the first to admit that he was no professional, so instead of admonishing himself for behaving like an amateur he focused his attention on the mother as she shuffled into the room slowly, her back and shoulders slumped, seemingly from fatigue.

She didn’t see him.

Or even look in his direction.

Nor did she hear the deep, bass sound of his heart pounding frantically in his chest.

It only took her a moment to shut and lock the window. Then a moment more to reach the bottom of the stairs.

“Nine minutes left!”

 “No problem,” Earl called out from the basement.

Wanda glanced back at the window she had just closed, then continued climbing the stairs. She was thankful that they lived in a quiet neighborhood where, even though they left the window wide open, they didn’t have to worry too much about robbers.

CHAPTER 40:

The dresser stood on the floor near Earl’s tool bench. Hand-sanded and stained twice, it glowed with a confident warmth. The neo-colonial, four-drawer dresser was the most elaborate piece of furniture he had ever attempted, and Earl was thrilled at how it turned out. With cured maple throughout, dovetailed joints and mother-of-pearl inlays forming a one-inch border around the top, the dresser looked nearly exactly like the one in Master Woodworker magazine, except for the mahogany pulls, those were Earl’s idea.

Earl had laid out the four drawers, each held together with two wood clamps, in a row on his workbench. He began checking them all, working left to right, making sure they were snug and positioned correctly. The joints appeared to have set properly, although Earl decided not to loosen the clamps until morning at the earliest. He loved working in the cool cellar where there were no distractions like television or traffic or even; he hated to say, his dear wife.

Below ground level, he could work at his pace, shaping featureless chunks of wood into ornate tables, chairs, lamps, and dressers. Everything seemed clearer in his workshop. When he shaved a piece of wood, it changed shape; when he glued a joint, it stayed glued; when he applied urethane to a surface, it shone. He wished life outside his workshop could be just as direct and clear, but it wasn’t, and there was no point hoping it ever would be.

---------

Not long after Wanda turned off the foyer light, she began hearing things: nothing specific. Creaks, bangs, something that sounded like a cough. It was probably Earl she figured. Or her imagination playing tricks. It didn’t help that the English detective novel she was reading was boring her to tears. She would never have borrowed if from the library if her friend Phyllis hadn’t raved and raved about how wonderful the story was and how she couldn’t put the book down. Wanda preferred Harlequin romances.

. Strong men.

. Beautiful women.

. None of that police mumbo-jumbo.

Wanda glanced at the clock radio. It was nearly midnight. She figured that Earl would run out of steam pretty soon, but she couldn’t wait up any longer, so Wanda set her open book on the bedside table, turned off her reading lamp and slid down beneath the covers.

She was asleep soon after her head hit the pillow.

-----------

Detective Wallish opened his futon, pulled back the top sheet and climbed into bed. He didn't like having anything pressing down on top of him when he slept, so a top sheet was all that he used. For some reason, Mr. Ferguson had been on his mind all evening. Something about the guy's face: his eyes, the sheer rage when he punched the hospital wall.

The detective knew it was stupid.

Guys like Ferguson would never do something as illogical as going after the guy who killed their kid. That wouldn't make any sense. So, as the detective's exhausted body sank lower into the mattress, he tried to push the thought out of his mind. It would be a stupid move and Ferguson wasn't stupid. Besides, the detective figured if he had a dollar for every bereaved father who vowed revenge he'd be a…

Then sleep caught up with him.

-----------

Mr. Ferguson’s throat burned from the acidic fumes his knotted stomach pumped up his windpipe. His heart was racing so fast he feared it would burst through his chest. Still, he has no intention of stopping until he did what he came to do, so Mr. Ferguson wiped his sweaty palm on his pants leg and stood.

From the middle of the dark foyer, he could hear the father working on something in the cellar. The mother was probably in bed by now because he hadn’t heard her footsteps overhead in the past ten or so minutes.

He was standing in the darkness, trying to figure out his next move, when the second-floor bedroom light went out.

That decided it for him, and he began climbing the stairs, hugging the wall to avoid any squeaky boards.

Once he reached the second floor, Mr. Ferguson saw three doors. He guessed the one at the end of the hall led to the bathroom. The door in the middle, was open and likely the parents’ bedroom. The door nearest him, the one with the L.A. Lakers pennant stuck to it, had to belong to Ian Timmins.

Mr. Ferguson walked silently, setting the outside edge of his foot down first then rolling onto the ball as he shifted his weight.

A trick he learned from somewhere or the other.

The 1911’s hammer made a loud metallic click when it locked into place, but he didn’t think it was a sound the father, mother, or kid would recognize.

Once he opened the door, Mr. Ferguson figured that he might not have a lot of time to get off his first shot, especially if the kid woke up or, worse, if he wasn't asleep to begin with.

The door handle turned smoothly, and the hinges were so well-oiled that his entry was silent and steady. Mr. Ferguson began squeezing the trigger as he raised his weapon but suddenly froze when he saw that the kid’s bed was nothing more than a pile of sheets and blankets.

Damn it!

Mr. Ferguson had no idea where the kid was, but he knew who might.

-----------

Earl hung his plastic handled Robertson driver on its peg and turned off the bank of overhead fluorescent lights. It was nearly one o’clock, and he had been working longer than expected. He figured that Wanda would be asleep by now so he wouldn’t have to worry about being nagged, not until morning anyway.

Ever since he began working in the basement, he had heard things – creaks and bangs and, once, a cough. But, he figured it was just Wanda taking a while to get settled. 

Earl stopped about midway up the basement stairs when he suddenly became light-headed, but the feeling quickly passed, and he continued climbing.

The kitchen was unusually dark, even with the lights off, probably because the streetlight in the back alley was still out, after two weeks and repeated calls to the city.

Earl made it all the way through the kitchen, stopping only at the table to straighten his chair when he suddenly decided to check the back door. Turning suddenly to double back, he stopped when he thought he saw something in the deep shadows that cloaked the back porch. Earl continued to stare, not out of fear but curiosity. That curiosity came to an abrupt and shocking end when the clear shape of a pistol emerged from the darkness and, holding the gun, a tall man, dressed completely in black.

It was only after several seconds that Earl remembered to breathe. During that time, his heart continued to beat a frenzied rhythm within his chest, and a wave of nausea rose from his stomach and lodged in his throat.

“Where’s your son!?”

Earl knew that someday he would find himself facing someone who was very angry or hurt by some bad thing that Ian may have done. Earl had known this for years but, although he tried, he could never figure out what he would say or do if it happened. Of course, Earl couldn’t, wouldn’t deny that he was Ian’s father, that Ian was his son. But beyond those truths, Earl had no plan, and that made him even more afraid.

“My name is Earl Timmins.”

“Where?”

“His name’s Ian, Ian Timmins and I don’t know...”

Mr. Ferguson charged so fast that Earl didn’t have time to react. The next thing he knew he was sitting on his ass on the floor and his attacker was standing over him with the gun pointed at his head.

“Don’t lie. Where the hell is he?”

“Who are you?”

“He killed my son.”

“No. That wasn’t Ian. They caught the guy who did that. It was on T…”

Suddenly a wave of shame swept over Earl and, when the crest broke; Earl Timmins began to sob. Sob as though his heart was going to burst.

Mr. Ferguson lowered his gun to his side and stared.

Earl finally managed to control his gasps enough to say, ”My boy wasn't always… Matter-of-fact, I remember in grade nine...”

“Earl?” Wanda called out then picked up speed as she descended the stairs.

“Two of you stay out of this. The business I have is just with your son.”

Mr. Ferguson jammed the 1911 into his pants waistband and hurried out the back door.

Earl quickly wiped the tears from his face and had nearly climbed to his feet when Wanda turned on the light. Her eyes widened with fear when she saw him.

“What happened?”

“I'm OK, Babes. Just tripped. I’m OK.”

Wanda slid her hands under his arms and helped him into the nearby chair.

"Your eyes. Have you been…?"

Earl forced a smile then replied, "No, of course not. Just a little sawdust got into…I'm fine. Couldn't be better.”

“I thought I heard you talking to somebody."

"No one here but you, me, and the termites."

Wanda smiled then held out her hand and whispered softly, “Let's go to bed, Earl.”

Together, they shuffled into the foyer and from there, up the stairs.

Earl glanced at Ian’s bedroom door as they passed it then said in a soft, clearly exhausted tone,  “Just… going…. brush my teeth,” and instead of following Wanda into their bedroom he continued down the hall, stopping just outside the bathroom door. Earl waited there, listening to the rustle of bed linen as Wanda climbed into bed then turned off the lamp.

Earl crept back down the hall then stepped, without hesitation, into their son’s room. Even with the lights out, he could sense the chaos surrounding him. Turning on the light simply confirmed it. Ian’s bed was unmade, his closet a mess, and the floor, a congested sea of clothes and magazines.

Earl surveyed the landscape, looking for something that would give him a clue to his son’s whereabouts, but the room wasn’t talking.

“Sally’s…” He whispered to himself before wading through the clutter, his eyes constantly scanning the room for clues.

“Bally’s…Jerry’s…Berry’s.”

A pair of Ian’s pants wrapped itself around his ankles, and he bent down to pick them up. A search through the pockets revealed nothing but a handful of coins.

“Manny’s…Sammy’s…Bar.”

He continued his search - through Ian’s dresser drawers, clothes, trash can and clothes closet. He even looked under Ian’s bed, but nothing provided him with any more information than he already had. It was only when his exhaustion compelled him to rest his arm atop his son’s dresser that he noticed the overturned shot glass wedged between a single white sock and the plate he had spoken to his son about earlier. The gold printing, in a fancy calligraphy, was difficult to read in the darkness but once Earl managed to focus his eyes, he recognized the name immediately.

Frizzie’s.

Earl stared at the delicate lettering.

Frizzie’s.

He knew what he had to do, but he was exhausted, and Wanda was right, he should go to bed.

But he also knew that there was no point. He’d never be able to sleep. Not until he found Ian.

Wanda’s snoring meant that he didn’t need to dampen the sound of his steps as he walked down the hall to the top of the stairs and descended to the foyer. Under the watchful eye of the cuckoo, he slipped on his Clark’s loafers, pulled his nylon jacket from the closet and strode out into the damp night air to find his son, hopefully before the man with the gun did.

-----------

Mr. Ferguson was sitting in his car, reviewing for the tenth or twentieth time the events of the last hour, when the kid’s father stepped out of the house, climbed into his car and drove off. Mr. Ferguson followed, being careful to keep a respectable distance between his car and the lumbering Grand Marquis. He had convinced himself that the kid’s father was lying to him when he told him that he didn’t know where his son was. Mr. Ferguson planned to prove his theory correct and possibly end the whole thing that tonight.

CHAPTER 41:

The Fire Marshal's Office had closed Frizzie’s down for ten days last month because one Saturday evening the inspector counted 150 customers when their license clearly stated that the nightclub had a maximum capacity of 120. The loss of Frizzie’s was a real bummer for the leather and lace crowd who had to make do at Tiny’s or The Texas Watering Hole, where they really didn’t fit in, until Frizzie's reopened. Those ten days, while an inconvenience for the patrons, were murder for Jamie, one of Frizzie’s owners and the head bartender.

After deducting payroll and beer and liquor costs, the house cleared about six hundred a night on weekends, half that on weekdays. Once the accountant factored in amortized electricity, water, taxes and loan repayment, those nightly numbers dropped by half. The ten days that they were closed had cost Jamie and the other two owners big time.

For the past couple of weeks, Jamie had been making vague suggestions that his partners buy him out, but they weren't listening. Just like they didn't listen to him a year ago when he told them that the head waitress, a pretty face with big tits and an even bigger attitude, was skimming the till. They didn't listen to him six months ago when he suggested that they revise their marketing strategy and try to bring in the boomer crowd. People like the old guy who had just walked through the door.

-----------

Earl hadn’t been in a bar since some of the concrete guys from that industrial plaza job invited him to have a couple of drinks with them. That was six, maybe seven years ago. He didn’t like that bar and he didn’t like this one either. Too much cigarette smoke, and too many people making too much noise. But, then again, he wasn’t there for a pleasant night out with the guys.

Earl scanned the crowd, hoping to pick out Ian, but the place was packed and dimly lit. Onstage, the leader of the Raging Torpedoes, a skinny kid who looked no older than fifteen, mumbled something unintelligible, then began strumming his guitar and screaming into the microphone, much to the delight of the audience.

Earl weaved his way through the crowd to the bar, where Jamie was busy mixing something exotic.

“Excuse me. I wonder if you’ve seen my son Ian? Ian Timmins?”

With the noise, it was possible that Jamie never heard Earl’s question, but it was more likely he had just ignored it.

“What can I get you, sir?”

“He’s about five-five, dark hair, probably wearing a black leather jacket with a guitar on the back.”

“Who?”

“My son, I’m looking for my son.”

“Haven’t seen him. You want a drink or not?”

“Later, thanks.”

Even before Earl finished his two-word sentence, Jamie turned and began drying glasses.

Earl retraced his steps, weaving his way through the crowd toward the club entrance. He wasn’t feeling well and desperately needed some fresh air and a place to sit. A couple of feet to the right of the entrance, he spotted an elevated wood bench and figured that the fresh air would have to wait, but a place to sit might do. The two women, both dressed as cowgirls, had their faces less than six inches apart and were talking animatedly about something secretive, so they never noticed Earl as he sat beside them.

Jamie was standing in front of the cash drawer examining a suspicious twenty-dollar bill when Ian strolled up to the bar and set his bowling ball bag gently on the floor.

“Hey sport, think I could get a Bud?”

 On an average night, Jamie figured that he got at least a dozen questions like that: rhetorical is what they called them in school. And, although Jamie yearned just once to answer, “No, we don’t sell alcohol in this bar,” he always held his tongue.

So, in one smooth motion, Jamie popped the cap off a bottle and set it in front of Ian. It was only after Jamie had Ian’s fiver in his hand that he bothered to look at his customer. The first thing he noticed was Ian’s leather jacket with a guitar on the back.

“Hey Bud, your father was looking for you.”

Jamie noted in passing that the kid looked as if he was going to shit in his pants.

“Here?”

“No! He was looking for you in the National Gallery in Washington DC, but I just happened to hear about it.”

The sarcasm was lost on his customer, and Jamie knew it, so he stuffed the guy’s bill into the cash drawer and began wiping watermarks off the fake marble bar top.

Ian scanned the crowd then hurried toward the front door. He was halfway there when he saw his father suddenly stand and start weaving his way through the crowd toward him.

Earl figured that his son wasn’t going to be happy to see him, but it didn’t matter; they needed to talk, and that was that.

He felt strange chasing his son.

When Ian was small, they used to play games like hide and seek or tag. But Ian was no longer a child, and this was not a game. Pursuing his son through this crowded bar was like nothing he had ever done before and he didn’t like it.

Possessing a thinner body profile and driven by fear, Ian was able to move through the forest of bodies faster than his father, so he made it to the far end of the club long before Earl had reached the middle. Ian raced down the hallway that led to the washrooms, and finding both the fire exit and utility closet door locked, the only escape open to him was the men’s washroom.

The harshly lit, well-scrubbed room had all the warmth of a morgue, right down to the nasal burn of undiluted Lysol. Ian figured he could hide in a stall by standing on the toilet so that his father couldn’t see his legs, but then he noticed a window and figured that it was worth a try. The bottom of the double-hung window slid up easily enough, but the heavy-gauge wire mesh that covered the outside was solidly attached to the cement block exterior. Still, Ian thought that a quick kick ought to at least loosen it; so he grabbed one of the overhead water pipes and raised his legs.

-----------

Earl struggled as he made his way through the crowd but like a stream of liquid weaving through a landscape of dry crackers, each man, each woman he brushed against absorbed a little bit of his energy, slowing his pursuit until he feared that he would never make it to the narrow doorway his son just disappeared through.

But while Earl’s strength was being sapped, his mind continued to race unabated…

What would he say to his son?

Why was Ian running?

Was it possible that Ian did something terrible?

Was this all just a nightmare?

All questions he could not answer. All answers he would later find that he could not question.

Earl finally made it across the bar floor and barged through the door marked ‘Gents’. The ceramic-walled room reeked of disinfectant and vomit and, at first, seemed empty, but then he saw his son, hanging by his arms from a water pipe.

“Ian!”

Ian dropped to his feet on the floor and turned.

“Hey, Dad. What are you doing here?”

There was something about Ian’s smile that bothered him, but Earl couldn’t put his finger on what it was, at least not immediately.

“We have to talk.”

“Sure, but now?”

“This is as good a place as any.” Then Earl saw the bag sitting on the floor beside his son's left foot. 

“That my bowling ball bag?”

“Go ahead, Dad. What did you want to talk about?”

Earl continued to stare at the bag for a moment, fighting to calm his breathing, desperate to slow his racing heart. He knew the question he had to ask, but it was several seconds before he felt strong enough in body and soul to ask it.

“Have you hurt anyone?”

Ian laughed then looked up at the ceiling, a subconscious action that Earl had discovered many years ago, preceded one of his son’s lies.

“Am I the Molotov Murderer? Is that what you mean? No, Dad. I would never hurt anybody. If it's an accident or something. You know. But never on purpose. Remember what you used to say? ‘Respect all life.’"

“I remember.”

Earl then fell silent for a moment, lost in the chorus of voices, each one advising him something different. He had decided not to tell Wanda about the man with the gun so he really couldn’t tell his son either. Even though the man intended to harm Ian. So he told a half-truth, an act that he always considered cowardly.

“There are other people looking for you, son."

“Cops?”

“Well yes, but…”

And at that moment something connected in Earl’s mind and his eyes fixed again on the bowling bag. It probably just contained clothes or shopping or a six-pack of beer, but….

“Son, what's in the bag?”

“Nothin’ much. Change of clothes.”

His son’s answer was immediate and flippant, but Earl didn’t have the energy to argue.     “You have to come home Ian, your mother is worried. We'll call the police togeth...”

Ian reacted with wide-eyed fury.

“No way!”

Suddenly, there was movement from inside one of the toilet stalls, and a cigarette-scarred voice growled,

“Shut up! Can't a guy even take a fuckin' crap in peace?”

The gush of the toilet flushing nearly coincided with the bang of an angry kick as the toilet stall door flew open and slammed against the wall with a force that rattled the bottles in Ian’s bowling ball bag. The heady smell of gasoline fought for dominance in the stale air as a 250 lb., walking tattoo parlor charged from his toilet stall, bumped into Ian, then continued his journey toward the row of washbasins.

The diversion gave Earl time to think.

I’m sure Ian didn’t hurt those people.

Was there gasoline in the bag? Why?

There was no earthly reason for Ian to have… unless …

But I have to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Allow him to tell his side of the story.

Explain why he broke the conditions of his parole.

Explain where he was last night? And the night before.

And why he was carrying around bottles of...?

The questions were many and the answers few, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Earl knew that he had to get that bowling bag from Ian, so before his son was able to recover from the burly man’s shoulder-butt, Earl made his move, covering the three feet that separated him from his Ian with surprising speed. Having snatched up the bag, Earl was half way out the door before Ian realized what happened.

“Dad!"

Earl heard Ian call out to him but by then Earl was already racing down the hallway, stumbling, banging into one wall then another as he fought to maintain his balance.

Ian leaned forward to take up the chase but at that moment the burly man turned, and seeing that someone was in his way, gave Ian an effortless forearm smash to his chest.

Ian ricocheted off the hard, cold wall, then grabbed onto the paper towel dispenser for support.

“Assholes, that’s what the world is full of. Nothin’ but fuckin’ assholes,” the burly guy muttered as he exited the bathroom with a swagger.

Ian hesitated for a moment, waiting for his vision to clear.

-----------

Jamie figured that the old guy and his kid must have been fighting or fuckin' or something in the washroom ‘cause they shot past the bar, both of them running like motherfuckers, knocking down people and spilling drinks. Jamie didn't give a shit. He and his partners paid the bouncers good money to take care of customers who couldn’t behave.

CHAPTER 42:

At first, Mr. Ferguson considered following the kid’s father into the bar but decided against it. If the bar were crowded, he could easily lose sight of the father, and the Timmins kid too. If the bar were empty, then he would be spotted and lose the advantage of surprise. So, Mr. Ferguson decided to wait in his car, keeping one eye on the front door of the bar and the other on the Grand Marquis parked about a block away. It proved to be a wise decision because Mr. Ferguson had not been waiting for more than thirty-five minutes when the father burst through the front door carrying some kind of bag. Mr. Ferguson had just started his engine and shifted into drive when the front door of Frizzie’s burst open again and a kid in his early twenties ran out onto the sidewalk, stopped, then glanced about, looking for something or somebody.

Mr. Ferguson picked up the yearbook photo and held it atop the dashboard, where the streetlight caught it in its glow.

The kid on the sidewalk was definitely Ian Timmins.

The anger swelled and within seconds, Mr. Ferguson’s right foot stomped on the gas pedal. The back wheels of the Lexus spun, squealing and smoking, then suddenly grabbed the asphalt and the SUV rocketed forward.

The Lexus raced across the street, heading straight for Ian. In the back of his mind, amid the rage and fatigue, Mr. Ferguson figured that killing the kid with his car would be easier for his lawyer to explain than shooting him with his gun.

Mr. Ferguson was less than sixty feet from the sidewalk when his target suddenly turned and began running north.

-----------

Earl was out of breath and feeling sick to his stomach by the time he reached the public parking lot north of Frizzies. He had just pulled his car keys out of his left hip pocket when the spiral ring that held the keys together caught on a pocket thread and jerked it from his hand. Earl watched in horror as his bundle of keys skidded across the pavement and fell through a sewer grate. Now on his knees, Earl tugged on the dirty, metal grate but it wouldn’t budge so he tugged again, and again, and was about to give it another pull when he heard someone running toward him. Earl couldn’t be sure that it was Ian but if it was then was he had to get out of there, and fast.

Earl darted across the street then headed west on Sunset to North Alvarado, south to Temple then east toward downtown. He ran most of the way, slowing to a hurried walk when he began to feel dizzy. Nothing in the immediate vicinity provided many opportunities for him to hide so he kept walking until he reached the City of Los Angeles Medical Center's parking lot.

Earl figured that he could hide behind one of the cars until Ian had given up, then make his way back to Ole Grand, fish his keys out of the sewer and go home, or to the police station, which, he hadn’t decided.

The lot was perhaps a quarter full, mostly with small compacts. Earl finally spotted a panel truck, parked about a hundred feet away and figured that it would provide the cover he needed.

------------

Ian saw his father run into the parking lot, but he didn't know which car he was hiding behind. So Ian walked to the middle of the lot and climbed up on the roof of a white compact. From there he could see the entire lot but still couldn’t see his father. So he thought he'd try a different angle and knelt on the ground so that he could see under the cars instead.

----------

Mr. Ferguson had just retrieved his debit card from the parking machine when he saw the Timmins kid, in the middle of a driving lane, kneeling on the ground. Mr. Ferguson had accelerated before the arm rose fully, slamming the wooden beam into his windshield and raking it painfully over his roof.

He rocketed down one lane of the parking lot and up another until he finally had a clear shot at the Timmins kid. With a twist of his wrist, he shut off his headlights then floored the accelerator. Impact less than fifteen seconds away.

-----------

Earl looked out from behind the van in time to see the white SUV racing through the lot. In no time, it would fly past his hiding place and reach the end of the row. Judging by the car's speed, Earl was certain that the driver wouldn’t have time to stop before ploughing into the cars parked at the end of the lane, so he turned to see where the racing car was likely to end up. That’s when he saw Ian, kneeling on the ground, unaware of the death speeding toward him. In an instant, Earl leaped to his feet and stepped out in the path of the approaching car.

Earl figured that it was more the driver’s quick reflexes than the wonders of  Japanese technology that brought the four thousand pound SUV to a stop, just inches from his legs. Staring through the windshield at each other, the two men remained immobile, neither backing down, neither apologizing.

“Dad! Give me my fuckin' bag!” Ian shouted.

Earl darted off while Mr. Ferguson threw his car into reverse.

-------

The white Lexus SUV rocketed through the exit gate and fishtailed out onto the deserted street. Mr. Ferguson had caught a glimpse of the Timmins kid running west, after his father, he figured. Mr. Ferguson wasn't familiar with this area of town, but he hoped that by driving the wrong way up Union, a one-way street, he could cut them both off.

He hadn't traveled more than a hundred feet when he heard the wail of a police siren and flashing red lights filled his rear view mirror. Mr. Ferguson pulled to the curb then slid the fully loaded 1911 under the front passenger seat.

CHAPTER 43:

Earl was lost.

Having zigzagged down so many side streets, he couldn’t tell which direction he was walking in. It was 4:34 according to his watch. In less than half an hour, the sun would begin rising in whichever direction was east, giving him some clue about how to find Ole Grand. The two-lane street he traveled was named Empire Avenue, and it ran through a deserted commercial area. Earl hoped for a light in a window or an open door, but the towering old buildings that lined this nondescript canyon were dark and still.

Since he couldn’t find help, Earl decided to rest and began looking for somewhere secluded, somewhere safe.

The bench, clean, and dry except for a thin layer of morning dew that clung to the seat, seemed out of place. Earl figured that L.A. Transit had put it there for bus riders to rest their legs after a long day of assembling widgets or sewing thingamajigs. But the transit stop sign was missing, likely a victim of the latest round of budget cuts.

Earl sat stiffly. Then, after a minute or so, he relaxed. He decided that he would call the police when he arrived home. But, what would he tell them? What would he tell Wanda? Our son is a murderer? He still didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it.

The footsteps were rapid and sounded as if they were coming his way.

Earl grabbed the bag then glanced about and considered his options. The next corner was a couple of hundred feet to the right. If someone were coming, they would see him before he had a chance to duck out of sight.

The alley directly across the street, he figured, was his best bet. But just as he entered the narrow passage, he heard the approaching footsteps break into a run.

“Dad!”

Earl tugged at the doors to several buildings that lined the alley until he came to a burned out factory, its walls the only part of the structure left standing. He found one door unlocked and, although the hinges were rusted and warped, he managed to squeeze inside.

    Earl struggled to get his footing amid the charred and broken rubble that covered the factory floor and was about to pull the bowling bag inside when someone slammed the door on his forearm. Earl opened his mouth to cry out in pain, but the sound didn’t come, nor did he release his grip on the bag. Instead, he held onto the sweat stained handle even tighter.

Through the opening, barely six inches in width, Earl saw the top of Ian’s head as he leaned with all his weight against the door, pressing the rusty metal edge against his father’s bruised arm.

“Let go!”

“Ian! Stop that!”

“Hey. Fuck you.” Ian shouted, then, backing off a foot or so, he dived, slamming the door with a flesh-muted thud against his father’s arm.

Earl screamed then his fingers uncurled and the bag slipped from his grip.

Earl staggered back, cradling his injured arm as he sat heavily on the ground. The first sound that broke the silence was the splash of liquid on concrete. Then the sharp smell of gasoline shot through the air and assailed his nose and eyes. Then followed a moment of calm then the muted burp of something bursting into flame.

Scampering backward over the shattered concrete and broken glass, Earl made a desperate attempt to move away, far away, from the door.

After a few moments, Ian’s hand, holding a flaming Molotov, slipped through the narrow opening and then, with a flick of his wrist, tossed the bottle to the side where it shattered on the ground, exploding into an angry, yellow flame then died quickly from lack of accelerant.

“Get off my back or next time the fuckin' bottle won't be empty.”

There was a moment of silence that followed Ian’s angry defiance, then the sound of hurried footsteps disappearing into the distance.

Earl wiped the tears from his eyes, inadvertently smearing his face with dirt, then took a deep breath and struggled to his feet. He was nearly upright when a cramp began in his stomach then spread, racing around to his back before rising into his chest and throat. Earl doubled over and dropped to his knees as great torrents of food and liquid exploded through his mouth and nose. But Earl's discomfort rapidly turned to shame and the shame to anger. Suddenly he stood and charged at the door, toppling the empty barrel that Ian had set against it to keep his father imprisoned.

Earl staggered into the alley then glanced left and right, but the deserted street was giving up no clues about the direction that his son had fled.

Perhaps it was the warmth of the red-orange sky that attracted Earl; perhaps it was simply the result of a mental flip of a coin, but, for whatever reason, Earl decided to walk east, toward the rising sun.

----------

Malik Powell promised his wife that he would be home in time to drive their two sons, Sekou, and Ahmed, to day care. He hadn’t intended to pull an all-nighter, but the HTML guys had really messed up the client’s website and since Internet Design, Inc. was his three-employee company, the buck naturally stopped with him. By midnight he had managed to edit the mark-ups so that the site at least worked, then he spent the next six hours giving the e-commerce site some much-needed sizzle. So…

POWELL, Malik Wesley, born September 1, 1966, passed away suddenly June 18, 1992, of unnatural causes. Loving husband of Kate, devoted father of Sekou and Ahmed. Services to be announced.

 …was feeling pretty good, tired but good, as he stepped off the elevator and walked through the lobby of the as-yet-unnamed twenty-five floor, black glass and gold office building located at the intersection of West 2nd and Emerald, just on the edge of the old industrial area of downtown Los Angeles. 

Harry, the security guard, was dozing as usual.

“Goodnight Harry.”

Mr. Powell checked his wristwatch then noted the time in the after-hours logbook. Harry awoke slowly then glanced at the security monitor sitting on the cluttered desk before him.

“More like good morning, ain’t it Mr. Powell?”

“I stand corrected, Harry. Good morning.”

And with that Mr. Powell left behind the climate-controlled cocoon and stepped out into the cool, desert morning.

Walking toward his car, the only one in the desolate parking lot, he thought he could smell the scent of jasmine then, curiously, gasoline. Mr. Powell reached into his pants pocket, pulled out his keys, then pressed Open on the remote. The Mercedes’ headlights blinked once then stared listlessly.

He climbed in and shut the door.

-----------

Ian could hear his father approaching from a mile away. The ole guy was a pain in the ass, but his mother would be pissed if he hurt him so Ian decided that retreat was his best option. But then Ian saw the guy climb into his Benz and figured that luck was finally going his way.

---------

Mr. Powell opened the moon roof to let out the stuffy air before punching button number one on his cellphone.

“Good Morning Babe. Yeah. I'm finally on my way. Two percent? OK. Anything else? Jesus, can't this stuff wait 'till...? OK. Just a minute. I have to get a pen.”

As Mr. Powell pulled a ballpoint from his inside jacket pocket and began to write.

Ian suddenly appeared at his driver’s window and knocked on the glass.

“Hold on a minute Babe.”

The Mr. Powell said to his wife before lowering his window halfway.

“Can I help you, young man?”

Ian smiled that smile of his, then said, “Thank you for asking. As a matter of fact you sure can. My car died about a block down the street so I was wondering if you could give me a ride to the nearest gas station.”

“Sorry.”

But as Mr. Powell raised his window, Ian grabbed the top edge of the glass and tried to stop it. He couldn’t. And the top edge of the glass finally wedged his fingers against the upper portion of the window frame.

Ian yanked his hand free, scraping off skin and unleashing several oozing torrents of blood.

Ian’s took one look at his hand then began kicking the side of Mr. Powell’s car.

“I asked you nicely you piece of shit,”

Mr. Powell threw open his door and charged at Ian.

“Get the fuck away from my car. You hear me?”

“Sorry, bud. Sorry. This is all a misunderstanding.”

But Mr. Powell didn’t wait for Ian’s apology; instead he climbed back into his car, slammed and locked the doors then picked up his cell.

“Sorry, Babe. Now, what was the last thing you wanted me to…”

And those were the last words that Malik Powell ever spoke because at that moment a flaming Molotov streaked through his open moon roof and burst into flame.

Ian laughed as he hurried away, remembering the scared shitless expression on the guy’s face. Mr. Powell screamed twice more time, but Ian didn’t turn around. Instead, he just kept walking until he was around the corner of the building and out of sight.

------------

    Earl heard the sound of shattering glass even before he turned the corner and saw the orange fireball envelop the car. His first reaction was not to get any closer since he figured that the gas tank could blow at any moment. Then he saw something move inside the car and heard a scream.

My God, Earl thought, such a terrible scream!

As he neared the car, Earl saw somebody sitting in the driver’s seat, not moving. Earl knew that the guy had to get out or he was a goner.

“Open the door!” Earl shouted at Mr. Powell. But there was not response so Earl held his hand in front of his eyes to protect them from the heat and shouted again, “Hey mister!”

Nothing.

So Earl grabbed the door handle. There was an immediate sizzling sound, then a bolt of pain shot up his arm. Earl jerked his hand away, leaving curled strips of his skin stuck to the metal. Wrapping his jacket around his good hand, he grabbed the handle again. This time he managed to open the door and Mr. Powell, clothes fully aflame, tipped out and into Earl’s arms. 

Earl grabbed Mr. Powell’s arms and twice tried to pull him from the car’s flaming interior but twice Earl’s hands slipped off, leaving him with a handful of rubbery skin that could have been his or the driver’s.

It was only on the third try that Earl was able to get a solid enough grip on the Mr. Powell, and even then Earl only found the strength to pull the heavy man a few feet. By then the Mr. Powell’s clothes had burned themselves out but not the car – it burned hotter than ever.

Earl finally stopped tugging on the man and sat on the ground, cradling the man’s head in his lap.

“Help! Help! Somebody help!”

Off in the distance, the wail of sirens sliced through the quiet air.

----------

Mr. Ferguson was driving in circles, down one street and up another, when he glanced through his side window and saw the column of angry smoke billowing into the red pastel sky. He pulled to the curb as one, then another, fire truck screamed past then disappeared around a corner.

What bothered Mr. Ferguson most was not that his plan had failed, but that he had no backup plan.

Mr. Ferguson hoped that by employing direction, strategic planning, prioritizing and goal-specific focus he would have been able to accomplish his task without exposing himself to identification and implication. But now Timmins’s father knew:

1.    He intended to kill his kid.

2.    He was the father of Tony Ferguson.

3.     He had a gun.

Mr. Ferguson figured that by now Timmins senior had conveyed all this information to his son, or the police, or both. Of course, Mr. Ferguson had committed no major crime as yet, other than simple Break and Enter, but he also knew that he needed to be extremely careful if he was to accomplish his task without risking imprisonment. 

Mr. Ferguson was in the middle of reassessing his strategy and prioritizing his tasks-to-completion when a fleeting movement in his rear view mirror caught his eye. He checked first to make sure that his doors were locked then scanned the street. It seemed deserted except for a pigeon pecking at something in the middle of the avenue. Still, Mr. Ferguson couldn't dispel the feeling that someone was watching him from nearby. After chiding himself for being so paranoid, he lowered his driver's window a couple inches to let in some fresh air.

----------

Despite the bandages, the lack of sleep, and the rumbling in his stomach, Ian was feeling pretty good about how things had gone. He wouldn't be able to go home again, of course. Not as long as his father was there. And that every cop in the city was probably looking for him, but Ian knew from experience that cops were dumber than dirt so there was no way they would ever find him. Not as long as he played it smart.

Or at least smarter than them.

Ian had just turned a corner when he saw the luxury SUV parked in the middle of the deserted street. He had two Molotovs left in his bag so he figured he’d have a little more fun.

Not a chance he’d get caught. The cops and the fire department were busy a couple of blocks away and the street was deserted, and, on top of that, it was an industrial area, so nobody was gonna be looking out a window.

At first, he thought the car was empty, but as he walked closer, he saw somebody sitting in the driver's seat.

Even better. He thought.

Ian shifted the bowling ball bag to his left hand and unzipped it with his right. A blast of gasoline-saturated air shot up his nose and brought tears to his eyes. Ian lifted one of the bottles from the bag and removed the foil from the wick. Then, with his left hand, he dived into his pants pocket and retrieved his lighter. The wick burst into a smoky orange inferno when Ian touched it with the lighter's flame.

Ian could see that all the car's windows were closed, so he was going to have to settle for scaring the guy shitless by throwing the Molotov under his car. That would give the driver plenty of time to take off before the flames reached the gas tank.

If the fool had enough sense to drive off.

And, if he didn't, well, then Ian figured it was the driver’s own fault.

The driver must have been asleep, stoned, or dead because the flaming wick lit up the whole street with its orange glow so anybody with his eyes open would have seen Ian coming a mile away.

 But not this driver; in fact, when Ian was less than five feet from the car, the fool lowered the window.

Ian smiled; it was almost as if the guy was askin' for it.

Ian was about to shove the Molotov through the partially open window when a blonde in a yellow tank top and pink shorts, and the old guy’s limp dick in her mouth, raised her eyes and looked at Ian from the passenger seat.

The John must have been in ecstasy because he failed to notice the crackling flame, less than two feet from his window, or the look of terror on his ‘girlfriend’s’ face.

Ian turned immediately and holding the flaming Molotov far from his body, he walked diagonally across the street, ripped out the flaming wick, slipped the Molotov back into his bag and kept walking.

No way I’m gonna torch a working girl, he thought.

As he walked through a quickly awakening downtown Los Angeles, Ian felt his exhaustion rise as the adrenalin ebbed from his blood.

He needed to find somewhere to rest.

Somewhere safe.

----------

It was no wonder that Mr. Ferguson never heard the homeless man approaching, the man’s bare feet made no sound on the dew-covered asphalt. Mr. Ferguson just looked up and there he was, standing a foot away from the open driver's side window, his dirt-caked hand turned palm up.

Mr. Ferguson was surprised but didn't show it; he was always too much in charge of his emotions to allow that to happen.

“You got twenty-five cents for a coffee, bud?”

Mr. Ferguson reached into his car's coin tray then handed the homeless guy a quarter.

“God bbbb..less you maa..maa mister,” the homeless guy stammered just before Mr. Ferguson rolled up his window, shifted the car into drive, and roared off down the street.

44:

Wallish and Mathison had seven active homicides on their board. Down one from eight after the Molotov Murderer turned himself in yesterday morning, but still more than any other homicide team. So, the detectives, Mathison especially, were pretty pissed off when the Chief sent them out to interview a witness in yet another case. Ever since the media started to plaster the exploits of the Molotov Murderer all over the front page, there had been three copycats. Most of the arsons were just for show, none of the perps managed to injure or kill anybody, although one moron torched his own arm.

The report Wallish scanned while he and his partner were stuck in rush hour traffic said that John Doe had sustained 2nd degree burns, smoke inhalation, and bruises when he pulled the victim, Malik Powell, from the burning vehicle.

“Gutsy move,” Wallish said in a murmur.

“Too bad it was for nothing,” Mathison replied.

There was no explanation in the report as to why LAPD Detectives Sullivan and Johnson, the attending officers, weren't able to get the hero's name, but having had the pleasure of working with Sullivan and his partner on one previous occasion, Detective Wallish could certainly understand why someone would not want to talk to those two assholes.

Mathison couldn’t find a legal parking space so he stayed in the car while his partner went inside to question the hero.

Three North was always a zoo. The lucky patients often found themselves and five others crammed into a four patient room. The overflow was relegated to the hallways and foyers.  Detective Wallish even once saw the hospital staff stick a patient into the janitor's mop room; fortunately they left the door open.

Every patient that wasn't dead or dying, pregnant, underage, or contagious ended up in Three North. The good news was that the hero's injuries couldn't have been too severe or he wouldn't have been shuttled off to the ‘likely’ ward; that's what the guys downtown called it because patients sent there were ‘likely’ to live. As opposed to the unfortunate patients of Three South, the ‘not likely’ ward, who were just putting in time before being transported to the morgue on Level B2.

The charge nurse, a rotund, black woman with a cheap blonde wig perched atop her head, gave Wallish's badge and ID card the briefest of glances before returning to the paperwork spread over the nursing station. 

“How may I assist you, officer?” she asked in a strong Georgia accent.

“I need to speak to the burn patient that was brought in a few hours ago.”

“Ahh! The hero!”

“Yes. Does our hero have a name as yet?”

“Charles Smith, according to him.”

Detective Wallish wrote the name in his notebook with careful penmanship.

“Thank you. May I speak to…”

“Three minutes max. He's been sedated. Room 32.”

“I've just got a couple questions.”

“Three minutes max,” she repeated then swiveled in her chair and glanced at the clock on the wall. “I'm timing you.”

Detective Wallish had the highest regard for the nursing profession. His mother was a surgical nurse at Kaiser across town for nearly thirty years. It was a crappy job, made worse by arrogant doctors, whiny patients, lousy hours, incompetent administrators, and low pay.

Kind of like his profession, but without the badge or gun.

Either Room 32 was slightly smaller than the other rooms on Three North or the patient’s beds were slightly larger because the swinging door banged into the end of the first bed before it was even half-open. Wallish stepped into the room and started to apologize but stopped when he realized that the old guy in bed number one was either sound asleep or dead.

In the adjacent bed, to the detective’s right, was a man in his twenties. An obnoxiously loud game show held his attention so firmly that he didn't even glance at the visitor. Wallish walked further into the room passing a curtained-off bed on the left, and, to the right, a tattooed man with a motorcycle snore, who lay naked, on his back, his arms folded neatly across his chest.

Wallish never liked small spaces, even as a kid. So, Room 32, with its confining, claustrophobic innards and harsh antiseptic air, made his eyes water and his stomach knot up.

The fifth bed, surprisingly, was empty. Detective Wallish turned toward the sixth, and last bed, then froze.

-----------

Wallish was out of the hospital and back into the patrol car in less than ten minutes.

“That was quick.”

"You’ll never guess who our John Doe hero is?”

“Superman?”

Wallish sighed then replied patiently, “No. Superman lives on the East Coast, not L.A. Superman doesn’t burn; Earl Timmins does.”

“You’re shittin’ me.”

“What are the chances that Timmins senior just happened to be walking by when a copycat was doing his thing?” Wallish asked.

“No fuckin’ way.”

“My thoughts exactly. But, the old guy doesn't exactly fit the profile of your garden-variety arsonist.

 “Don’t suppose Timmins senior had anything to say? Like where his son is now and was last evening.”

“He was in dreamland and his wife was, how do you say?... ‘uncooperative.'”

“She’s a real piece of work,” Mathison said in a dry, matter-of-fact tone as their car shot up the on-ramp to the San Bernardino Freeway and merged with traffic.

Neither Mathison nor Wallish actually believed that nut bar who confessed to being the Molotov Murderer, but they went along with the lie because their Lieutenant wanted to believe they got their man.

The Mayor wanted to believe.

And the public wanted to believe.

Hell, the Molotov Murderer case was so hot that Wallish and Mathison figured that even the Governor of California wanted to believe.

But anybody with half a brain knew that Jerry Miller, a middle-aged whack job from Anaheim who still lived with his mother, wouldn’t even recognize a Molotov Cocktail if he saw one.

Which left them with the nagging question of how Mr. Timmins senior came to find himself at the scene of yet another murder by fire. Unless Timmins senior was the Molotov Murderer and not his son as they had first thought. But, if the father was the perp then why would he torch a guy then try to save him?

It didn't make sense.

But not much did after the Big Bopper died in ’59.

CHAPTER 45:

Victor realized that it was a shitty job, in a shitty hotel, in a shitty part of town.

However, it paid the bills.

He was also aware that he used  ‘shitty’ more than most but it was a new word for him and he liked the way the sound rushed across his tongue.

Victor Khan, thirty-four years old, an electrical engineer and hobby violinist, was from Islamabad, a city of more than 11 million that made Los Angeles, with only three and a half million, look like a ghost town.

Victor had been working at the Maple Leaf Hotel for nearly three months now. Ever since the Learning Institute for Higher Education kicked him out for non-payment of tuition fees. The Institute, a sleazy school that operated out of a converted auto repair shop, promised foreign-educated immigrants accreditation training that would supposedly convince local employers to recognize the degrees and certificates that they had already earned in their home countries.

Victor wasn’t actually his name. He adopted it when he came to America. His real first name was unpronounceable by most westerners. Victor was hired specifically to work the eleven p.m. to eight a.m. shift. He didn't mind the hours. The place was dead from about three to six, giving him time to study for his welder’s certification exam and even get in a bit of practice on his violin. The bachelor apartment that he and his wife shared had paper-thin walls and whiny neighbors.

Victor had just closed the last clasp on his battered violin case when the kid in the black leather jacket walked in through the front door and shuffled indecisively up to his bulletproof glass enclosure. Victor figured the kid out immediately.

One day rent.

Probably came home drunk and his wife kicked him out.

Cash because he didn’t own a credit card.

Will likely make a mess of the room before he leaves.

The bowling ball bag was a puzzle though, partly because the kid didn’t look like the bowler type and secondly because the bag moved quickly as he walked so it couldn’t have contained a heavy bowling ball. Probably just a toothbrush and whatever clothes the kid had time to pack before the front door slammed behind him.

    “You got a room? Single, one day.”

    Victor gave him #336, not one that he would normally rent out, but the kid had that ‘I'm better than you 'cause I was born here’ look, so Victor thought the bedbugs, left behind by a Spanish tourist who’d skipped out without paying, would serve the kid right.

    His new guest had just stepped into the hotel’s temperamental elevator when Victor paused, thinking that he smelled gasoline.

But the odor was only fleeting so Victor attributed it to his imagination.

CHAPTER 46:

A hot, dry wind buffeted Father Phaelon as he stood at the head of Tony's casket. Covering the grave, scooped out just hours ago by the articulating arm of a bright yellow backhoe, was a large, green tarp.

It was a small group of mourners. Most knew Tony well; all grieved his loss.

The attendees stood except for three surviving members of Tony Ferguson’s immediate family who sat on thinly padded folding chairs placed between the spectators and the casket.

All three Fergusons were impeccably dressed in black.

All three wore dark glasses that distanced them from the outside world and hid their bloodshot eyes.

One of those three Fergusons, however, was consumed with more than debilitating grief.

Sitting in the center of what was left of his family, his right arm draped across his wife’s shoulder, his left hand gripping his daughter’s moist hand, Samuel Ferguson’s heart was an inferno of raging hatred.

Father Phaelon, who had been waiting for the appropriate moment to begin, finally opened his gilded edition of the Holy Bible to Psalm twenty-three and silently read the first few lines for his benefit alone. It was not selfishness that quelled his voice but the need to fortify his own soul so that he might have the strength to continue his sorrowful task. The Ferguson’s were dear to his heart, especially young Tony and Sara-Ann.

Then there was Heather, whose grief over the past few days had sapped his energy.

And Samuel.

Father Phaelon knew that over the next days, weeks, and possibly months, it was going to take all of his strength to heal the malaise that had darkened Samuel’s heart.

In due course, the Father slowly lifted his eyes from the page, scanned the assembled mourners, and smiled.

“I am told that dawn was Anthony's favorite time of the day. With its fresh air and the warmth of yet another newborn sun...”

Perhaps it was the gusty wind that obliterated Father Phaelon’s eulogy or perhaps Mr. Ferguson just stopped listening because he never heard another word. Three or four minutes later, the priest shut his shiny new Bible and handed it to Heather but she just stared at Father Phaelon’s offering, perhaps thinking that by allowing it to remain in his pale-white hand she might delay the moment when she would have to accept that her son was dead.

“Heather!”

Father Phaelon didn’t want to raise his voice, the woman had just lost her only son, but she seemed unresponsive and he was feeling awkward standing there with his arm outstretched.

But Heather remained still.

She couldn't.

She wouldn't.

Eventually, Mr. Ferguson reached past his wife and relieved Father Phaelon of his burden. It was only then that Mr. Ferguson turned to look, really look into his wife’s face and noticed that her eyes, always beacons of dancing light and laughter had turned black and lifeless.

-----------

“I've been admiring your eyes all evening,” the young Mr. Ferguson slobbered through his alcohol-numbed lips.

 “You sure it was my eyes that caught your attention?” she replied as he collapsed, uninvited, into the vacant chair beside her. Holding his hand to his chest in mock indignation, he muttered, "Have mercy, fair damsel, thou cutst me to the quick.”

    He was lying of course. Up to the beginning of his semi-confident stagger across the oak-parquet dance floor Mr. Ferguson hadn't even noticed that the object of his lust even had eyes; it was her 44D breasts that caught his attention.

    The two talked all that evening until the band started to pack up, then talked some more as she drove him home in his car. The next morning, all Mr. Ferguson could remember was her electric blue eyes and infectious laugh. They weren’t much alike: not their tastes in music, or movies, or clothes. They didn’t even move in the same social circles; still, they fell in love.

They did have one thing in common, however; despite being in their senior year of university, neither of them knew what they wanted to do with their lives.

A hastily installed condom the first time they had sex decided for them.

    With fatherhood less than nine months away, Mr. Ferguson began job hunting, eventually landing a position at Prologue Communications. The head of the company owed his father a favour or two, so he agreed to hire his son as a junior communications consultant. Mr. Ferguson spent the first six months going for coffee and proofreading media releases.

He was promoted two weeks after Tony was born.

-----------

Mr. Ferguson wondered if his wife's eyes would ever regain their radiance if her laugh would ever return. And he wondered if their marriage would survive what had happened and what he had yet to do.

Once the Bible was firmly in Mr. Ferguson’s hands, Father Phaelon nodded. Mr. Ferguson was the first to his feet, then Sara-Ann and last, the grieving mother.  Father Phaelon then led the Ferguson’s toward their waiting limo. Most of the assembled mourners followed at a respectful distance. A few lingered at the gravesite to say their private goodbyes.

Half way through their halting journey, something, perhaps concern, made Father Phaelon turn and study the faces of the family that he had, over the years, come to respect. Heather and her daughter wore the fragile masks of outward calm but Samuel’s expression, however, reflected none of the stoic dignity that the Father would have expected, instead, etched into Samuel Ferguson’s face was a darkness that chilled the dry desert air.

Father Phaelon turned up the collar of his coat and plunged his hands deep into his flannel-lined pockets.

But the terrible chill persisted.

------------

Detectives Wallish and Mathison sat in their car and scanned the mourners with powerful binoculars. It was a long shot, but Mathison thought that maybe the perp would show up at the Ferguson kid’s funeral. It wouldn't have been the first time that some sick puppy had gotten his kicks from his victim's internment. Or as the shrinks would say, "derive feelings of empowerment from observing the grief and suffering caused by their criminal actions."

His partner, and more importantly, the Chief, had decided that it was just pure coincidence that Mr. Timmins senior crossed paths with some Molotov Murdered copycat.

The entire MDRPD, city prosecutor’s office, the media, and Joe Schmo from Cocomo believed in their hearts that the real Molotov Murderer was now safely in jail. 

Which is why Wallish’s voice contained more than a tinge of impatience.

“So. Isn’t about time we wrapped this fuckin' thing up partner?”

Mathison had to admit that his partner did have a point. The stake out was a bust. The perp didn't show, or if he did then, he fit right in.

Which wasn't likely.

His partner had already started up the car and eased the gearshift lever into drive when Detective Mathison finally lowered his Bausch and Lomb's and slid the 10 x 40s back into its battered leather case.

The two men didn't speak at all during the forty-five minute drive back to Headquarters Bureau, instead, Wallish mulled over the possible scenarios that could arise when he called Helen to tell her that he thought they needed to take a vacation from each other. The detective had only met the woman at last month's bowling league pub-night. Since, they have seen each other at least every other day. But over the last week or two he had become convinced that Helen was probably a closet boozer and wanted her out of his life. He'd probably tell her over the phone. Or maybe he'd drive to her place and tell her in person. He would never just leave a message. That would be cruel.

She'd probably cry.

Or swear.

Or both.

Doesn’t really matter, he thought, She wasn't that great in bed anyway.

Mathison’s silence resulted from the simple fact that he didn't feel like talking. Plus his head was pounding from too much coffee, or not enough, and his stomach was so bloated that he was thankful that he had the car seatbelt to keep him from floating out the car window.

The Hollywood Freeway eastbound was lighter than usual, until it reached Wilton, then it plugged up tighter than a carnivore's lower intestines. Mathison lit a cigarette, his first this week. His doctor had told him if he didn't quit he was going to end up carrying around an oxygen tank and breathing into a face mask. But the cigarette helped his headache a little and freed his mind to wander from subject to subject, image to image until it finally came to rest the question he had asked himself a million times over the past twelve hours.

Why was Timmins senior at the crime scene last night?

CHAPTER 47:

It was the tree. That was why his wife liked the Tom Thomson placemat.

Wanda loved trees.

Earl came to this realization after staring at the mat for half an hour, while his untouched cup of coffee completed its journey from scalding to tepid.

That’s all she ever painted in Grade 12 Introduction to Art. Tall trees, short trees, pine trees, maple trees, trees with leaves, trees without leaves, she even painted a Bonsai or two. Art was the only class that Earl and Wanda ever had together. And although he liked spending the time in close proximity to her, he never took much of a liking to painting: not the portraits, or the landscapes, or the pretty vases with flowers or fruit.

No, Earl spent most of the class painting pictures of multicolored squares and triangles. Phillip Munro, a year older and theoretically wiser, said that Earl’s limited choice of artistic subject matter accurately reflected his anal personality.

Phillip fancied himself an intellectual.

But despite being artistically impaired, Earl thought that his wife was a fine painter and had encouraged her to take it up again. About fifteen years ago, he even bought her a set of oil paints and brushes for Christmas. To this day, the paint set was still in the attic, where she had stuck it the next morning.

Strangely enough, Earl thought, Wanda was never that crazy about real trees; his wife just liked painting them.

Earl’s coffee filled the shiny white mug with the word Dad printed in fancy type on the side. The cup wasn’t a Father’s Day present as one might have imagined; Wanda bought it a couple years ago from a Wal-Mart clearance bin. The day she presented it to him his favorite cup, made of glass and emblazoned with the words ‘Kiss Me I’m Irish’, suddenly disappeared. True, the ‘Kiss Me’ cup was a little old and scratched, and there was that sharp chip on the rim. Earl had hung onto it for so many years because he won it at Pacific Ocean Park when he was a kid. Nobody else ever used it except Earl and he knew to drink from the non-chipped side or risk a nasty cut. 

Earl returned to thinking about Ian when the back door opened and Wanda burst into the kitchen cradling a perfect, ripe tomato in one hand and three or four diseased ones in the other. She held up the perfect tomato for him to see.

“First of the season. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“A beauty. Couldn’t be better.”

Earl reached out to pick up his cup of coffee but a sharp pain shot up his right arm and he quickly abandoned the effort.

The emergency room doctor had told Earl he was lucky. That he only sustained second-degree burns on his palm, a small area of his right forearm, and two fingers of his left hand. The remainder of the damage consisted of singed hair and an ugly, half-moon shaped bruise on his left arm.

They lived at least forty-five minutes from the hospital, but Wanda was there less than a half hour after the Triage Nurse called her.

Earl told Wanda about finding their son in the bar, about the bottles of gasoline in the bowling ball bag, about the chase, about Ian trying to scare him with the empty gasoline bomb, about finding the man’s burning car. Wanda sat silently throughout the entire story then when there was nothing else to tell, she stroked his good hand and said that everything would be all right. By then he had begun falling asleep from the medication they gave him, so Earl made her promise to tell the whole story to the police when they arrived. She promised she would. 

Less than ten hours after being admitted, a cheery nurse pranced into the room and told Earl he could go home. Wanda had hoped that they would keep him overnight. Afraid that his injuries could trigger a diabetic episode. But the nurse said that Earl’s blood sugar was good and that his burns should heal, in her words, ‘nicely’.

On his way to the elevator, Earl stopped at the nurse’s desk and asked about the man he pulled from the burning car. The nursed paused before answering, then said without looking up, “I’m afraid that he succumbed to his injuries.”

Wanda brought her hand to her chest and said with genuine remorse, “Oh dear, we are so sorry to hear that.”

Earl, however, fell silent and stared at the floor, his face a mixture of shame and anger.

 He and Wanda didn’t talk much on the long journey back to 2451 Torrance Avenue. Despite his wife’s objections, Earl insisted on driving. He hoped that the trip would give him some respite from the cyclone of thoughts that raced through his mind, but though he tried to concentrate on the road, the terrible events of the past few days kidnapped his mind and soul.

As they pulled into the driveway, Earl silently wondered what he would say to his son if he were home, but to his relief the house was silent and empty.

------------

Wanda finished washing the tomato then turned and, while drying the fruit with a paper towel, studied her husband’s mournful face.

“Sure you don’t want to go upstairs and lie down?” she asked, perhaps for the hundredth time.

“No, I’m fine. Couldn’t be better,” he countered. Then Wanda turned and looked out the window at their garden oasis.

 “For the life of me I don’t know what’s wrong with these other tomatoes.”

“Aphids maybe,” Earl volunteered as he continued to stare at Mr. Thomson’s painting. But while his eyes caressed every twist and turn of the artist’s brush strokes, something of what his wife had just said pierced his subconscious and remained as a sliver of thought and pain.

Earl looked up at his wife but just as their eyes met she abruptly turned her back to him and began washing the handful of undersized tomatoes in the sink.

As Earl studied his wife, he noticed more grey hairs than he remembered her having. Over the top her head, they streaked and ended in a massive bun at the back. Two black, enamel-coated hairpins, one inserted horizontally, and the other diagonally, held the bun in place. Earl’s eyes descended and he had just begun to study the creases at the back of her neck when she shut off the water, turned, and held up the handful of diseased and blighted tomatoes for him to see.

“This one’s not so bad, but it’s still…. Look!”

Earl did as he was told and studied the tomatoes. She was right. The normally red tomatoes were a sickly pink, the skin, pockmarked with blemishes, the overall shape, grotesquely deformed.

 “I just don’t understand. We did everything right.”

At that moment, the sliver dug deeper into his brain and triggered an explosion of anger and frustration. And as if from a punctured balloon of long suppressed thoughts, the words just burst out as puffs of raging sound, “No we didn’t! We didn’t do everything right! Because if we had then…!”

 Earl stopped because he could not speak and at the same time fight back the tears that flooded his eyes and the convulsions that seized his chest. Earl promised himself that he was not going to cry. It was a promise he had made the first time their son went to jail. It didn’t do any good then and it wouldn’t do any good now. So Earl remained motionless, waiting for the tears to return to where they came, waiting for his breathing to return to what it was. After a few moments, he spoke again, struggling to maintain a calm, even tone, despite the emotion churning his insides.

“Because, Wanda, if we did everything right then… then....”

Wanda remained motionless, waiting for Earl to finish his sentence, but he didn’t.

 “The petunias took fine though. Maybe I'll put some more over by the back porch. What do you think?”

Earl didn’t respond. Instead, he turned and rested his eyes and mind on the placemat. As he studied the gangly tree at the centre of Mr. Thomson’s painting, he noticed that one of the knots gracing its trunk looked almost human, with eyes and a mouth and something of a nose. The tree's spindly branches, gaunt and angular, reached up toward the slate gray sky with the earnestness of a child reaching for its mother.

Earl had no intention of answering his wife’s question. It was the way she always handled problems, or arguments, or conflicts, or anything.

Pretend it didn’t exist.

But Sweet Jesus! This does exist and no amount of talk about petunias or tomatoes is going to make it go away! The voice in Earl’s head replied.

The silence, it seemed, lasted for hours, although, in fact, it was only a minute or two before, mercifully, the telephone rang.

 “I'll get it.”

Wanda set the well-scrubbed tomatoes into the sink then hurried through the foyer and into the family room.

 “Hello?”

The next thing Earl heard was the sound of the family room door closing. That got his attention.

It wasn’t Earl’s habit to listen to his wife’s phone calls, but the excited gasp she uttered and her sudden need for privacy piqued his curiosity, so he stood and, avoiding the loose floorboard, crept out of the kitchen and tiptoed as far down the foyer as he dared. 

Through the silence, Earl strained to make sense of the fragments.

“So you’re OK?.. . That’s good to hear. Your father and I were so worried… No. …No. Just tell…” Then a pause, then, “Baby. Just tell them you didn't…”

Earl tensed his body in preparation for moving closer but decided at the last moment to remain where he was.

“I know, I know, it’s not fair…. They have to believe you. Yes, baby…Yes, I know, honey.” Wanda fell silent for a long time then her voice took on a warm, almost childlike tone. “Yes baby, I will. I’m so glad you called. Please behave yourself. You know what I mean?... Yes...Love you... bye bye.”

And then she hung up.

    Earl hurried back into the kitchen and sat. Moments later, Wanda breezed in and resumed her work at the sink. Earl remained silent, hoping that his wife would tell him who’d called but as the seconds turned to minutes, he realized that his hope was in vain. Finally, he could wait no longer.

“Was that Ian, Babes?”

Wanda continued to dry the tomatoes without pausing. “Our Ian? No. Just a salesman tryin’ to sell us somethin’ or the other. You want some more coffee?”

“No. Think I'll lie down for a while. Feel a bit tired.”

And Earl truly was. The few hours of sleep he’d had at the hospital provided him with no rest and now the heavy burden of Ian’s call and Wanda’s lie exhausted him even more. He needed to privacy. Space to think. He needed to figure out what he was going to do next. Earl stood, set his chair neatly at the table then turned to begin the long trek to their bedroom.

He was near the family room door when Wanda called out, “I'll come check on you in a while.”

As Earl climbed the stairs, one foot at a time, one step at a time; for the first time in years, he felt terribly alone.

CHAPTER 48:

Victor hadn’t slept well. Cowboy Bob, that's what Victor had named the hard-drinking, chain-smoking neighbor who lived in the bachelor directly below his one bedroom apartment, must have bought a karaoke machine. Because he spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon singing the same Hank Snow songs to a full accompaniment of weepy guitars and honky-tonk horns.

    It was nearly two in the afternoon when Victor finally gave up trying to sleep and headed for the shower.

----------

Ian’s hotel room was a mess. Empty potato chip bags, candy wrappers, pop bottles, all from the vending machines down the hall, shared the floor with bed pillows and sofa cushions. He watched a baseball game on television while sitting in an upholstered chair, his feet resting on a corner of the unmade bed. Eventually, he glanced at the bedside table clock behind him.

    “Check out time.”

Ian shut off the television with the remote, stood and stretched, then snatched up his bowling ball bag a bit too abruptly. The bottles inside slammed against one another. Ian winced at the sound then set the bag down gently, unzipped the top then frowned when the thick fumes assaulted his nose.

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Victor heard the television as soon as he turned off the shower. His wife was a news junkie and KJLA was a news junkie’s dream. The station boasted not only 24/7 news coverage but also updates at the top and bottom of the hour. It just so happened that his journey from the bathroom to the clothes closet led him past the open bedroom door. From there he had a straight-on view of their ancient twenty-five inch Sony Trinitron sitting against the far wall of the living room. The first item up was the early morning firebomb death of Malik Powell. Victor didn’t pay any attention to the news; even his wife, sitting on the floor, surrounded by books as she prepared for her accounting exam, only listened with half an ear.

Washday was tomorrow, so Victor’s clothing options were limited. He chose a frayed pair of blue jeans and a white T-shirt. It was his day off and he promised his sister to help her load MS Office on to her new PC.

It wasn’t until Victor pulled the T-shirt over his head, being careful to avoid his still wet hair, that something clicked in his consciousness.

. Man killed by gasoline bomb.

. Guy rents one of his rooms less than an hour later.

. Smell of gasoline.

They were only bits and pieces, held together by threads of assumptions, but the sum was enough to make him pick up the phone and call the hotel.

 “Hello, Mr. Chow? It’s Victor.” His boss responded in his usual self-serving manner.

“No Sir, nothing wrong. Just wondering if that shitty guest in room 336 has checked out yet?”

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Ian shut off the bathroom sink tap, used a bath towel to dry both of the Molotovs then set them on the blue-tiled floor. Next, he squirted half of the complimentary bottle of hair shampoo into the bowling ball bag, turned on the shower and directed the hot water through the zippered top. First steam then sudsy froth poured out of the bag. Ian dried the inside then returned the two clean Molotov’s to the bag and wrapped a dry towel around them. He held the bag up to his nose, sniffed, then smiled, impressed with his ingenuity.

    Ian’s right hand was inches from the doorknob, the bag in his left when he heard the elevator stop on his floor. He didn’t really want to bump into any of the other hotel guests so he hesitated to give whomever it was in the hallway time to pass his door. The dispatcher’s voice carried with amazing clarity.

    “Wilshire 221, possible B and E…”

    Then there was a click, and the cop’s radio fell silent.

    Ian smiled as he hurried to the window. He figured there would be another cop watching the rear door of the hotel and one positioned at the bottom of the fire escape, so Ian crawled out the window quietly and climbed instead, up the fire escape, toward the roof. He figured the cops didn’t have enough manpower to put someone up there too. And, he was right. Except for a few pigeons, the roof was a barren field of dull black tarpaper and mismatched chimney pipes jutting toward the sky.

    Ian had just set his foot onto the spongy roof, when he heard the cops kick in his door. Dumb as they were, he knew that it wouldn’t take them long to figure out that since he didn’t go down the fire escape he must have gone up.

The neighboring buildings were too far from the hotel roof for him to try jumping.

He might make it, but the odds weren’t good.

He could go down the stairwell, but the cops probably had that covered.

Ian figured he had about thirty seconds or less to come up with a plan and that’s when he noticed the three TV cable wires running from a large metal box bolted to the roof. In prison, they showed a movie, he’d forgotten who was in it, but the hero used the TV cable wire to lower himself to the ground from a third-floor window. This hotel was six storeys, but Ian figured that if it worked for three then it ought to work for six. He really didn’t have many options anyway. One of the wires stretched across the roof and ran down the front of the hotel; the other ran down the back, and the last, down the side to an alley. Since the front and back were probably crawling with cops, Ian chose the third cable.

    In the movie, the hero just grabbed the wire in his bare hands and lowered himself down the side of the building, but as soon as Ian swung his leg over the side of the hotel and let his arms take the full weight of his body, he dropped faster than a hooker's panties.

With the cable wire racing through his closed hands, Ian dropped two storeys, only stopping when he landed awkwardly on the fourth-floor window ledge.

Although he felt the searing pain immediately, it took a few moments before the smell of burning flesh drifted up into his nose.

The bleeding red strip ran the entire length of both palms.

Ian blew on his hands, hoping to quell the pain, but it made no difference.

The bang he heard could only have been the stairwell door open. The three or four sets of feet, the cops, so Ian pressed his body against the window, hoping to hide in the shallow indentation.

Although he hadn’t thought to look through the window, he was flattened against, a movement inside the room caught his attention. Looking through the dirty glass, he saw a nervous man and woman hurriedly dressing. The man still had his pants around his knees and only one arm into his dark grey suit jacket. The woman quickly pulled her slinky red one-piece up her heroin ravaged body then slid her feet into a pair of black Nikes. She was out the door first, strolling at a casual pace. The guy scampered out next, nearly tripping on his untied shoelaces. The window was locked so Ian broke one of the panes with his elbow, flipped the latch then gratefully traded his precarious perch for the sanctuary of the now-vacant room.

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Wallish was a strong believer that bad news always comes in threes. So when one of their buddies in homicide phoned to tell them that the LAPD let Timmins get away, then the chief called to pull the plug on their stake out, it was no surprise that for some mysterious reason, their car refused to start.

By the time Wallish and Mathison flagged down a cab and endured the indignity of having to sit in the cramped back seat of what could have been the filthiest taxi in the western hemisphere, they were both in a foul mood.

Soon after arriving at the Maple Leaf Hotel, Detective Bacardi, a straight-up guy from tactical communication, advised them that not only did the first officers on the scene fail to properly seal off the exits but that LAPD Homicide Detective Beckett, a greenhorn with all of five months under his belt, seemed to have missed the police academy class that taught new officers to turn off their damn radio when approaching a suspect’s location. Anyway, Detective Mathison figured that there was no point having a stroke over it. Timmins slipped past them somehow and that was that. The detectives figured that he either went out the window or left before the LAPD even arrived. Mathison was sure they would get him since, as of two hours ago, Timmins regained his position as the number one suspect in the Molotov Murderer case.

Ian's promotion came about when Jerry Miller was released from detention. His own mother blew the whistle on little Jerry, who, evidently, made a career out of confessing to crimes, his and other people’s. Jerks like Miller just made everybody in law enforcement look stupid, the courts, the D.A.’s office, even the cops. 

    Wallish remained in the lobby, interviewing Mr. Chow, the hotel's owner while Mathison took the elevator up to the third floor to have a look at Timmins’s room.

    Mathison stepped off the elevator and walked silently down the left edge of the cheap pseudo-Turkish covered the hallway floor. Deputy Philips removed his hand from the handle of his Glock when he recognized the detective.

Mathison liked Philips. The young kid was a keener. Just like he’d been before the office politics wore him down.

Before his second marriage.

Before he accumulated twenty-eight years of administrative bullshit.

Before he got shot by that junkie.

    “Detective,” Philips said in a clear, professional voice.

    “How ya doin’ Philips?” Mathison asked, then strolled into room 336.

    “Guy wasn’t exactly Suzie Homemaker Detective.”

    Philips was right. The room was a mess and the splintered door, dangling ninety degrees from the twisted lower door hinge, didn’t add anything to the room’s ambience. First he checked the standard places: under the mattress, night table drawers, dresser drawers, and the clothes closet.

Nothing.

    Mathison could tell a lot about a person by their bathroom habits. The complimentary tube of toothpaste was unused, so unless the Timmins kid traveled with his own toothpaste he probably never brushed his teeth.

The unwrapped bar of hotel soap reeked of gasoline, which led the detective to assume that the kid got some of the accelerant on his hands. But then why didn't he wash his murderous little paws in the sink, which was chalky dry, instead of in the bathtub, which was still damp.

Mathison also noted that the bathroom trashcan was empty, the counter bare and the toilet bowl water clean and clear. Mathison stopped to take a deep breath then began turning slowly, his eyes scanning every surface, probing every corner.

“Come on bathroom, talk to me.”

It was only when he bent at the waist to look under the sink that he noticed several smears on the bathroom mirror. The marks seemed to be nothing more than a fingertip’s short-lived journey across the barren glass. But Mathison had to make sure, so he reached through the cheap vinyl shower curtain and turned the tap. The water burst through the showerhead and drilled into the bathtub bottom, drenching the rubber grip strips. It had taken less than thirty seconds before the bathroom mirror lost its clarity and the steam began coating it with a light grey film. That was when the detective saw Ian’s hastily drawn message….

“Stupid cops!”

Like the story so far? If so, CHECK BACK NEXT SUNDAY FOR EPISODE 6... thanks