Authors: Christopher Rice
It took them fifteen minutes to reach the front doors of the building. Several times Alex almost lost his footing, winced in pain when John’s attempt to readjust him brushed up against his injured side. If two of the deputies hadn’t come out of the lobby to guide them through, they might not ever have made it inside.
Patsy made no move to welcome either of them. Her pale, wide-eyed expression suggested that the cops had threatened to beat her with their nightsticks before John and Alex showed up. The cold look she gave Alex was for show; she had cried when John had told her where he finally found the man and how he had ended up there. The miniphalanx included the white-haired sheriff, whom John had not seen since those frozen seconds before Charlotte Martin had been fatally shot.
For a few seconds they all stood there, frozen, listening to the clamor of reporters outside. Finally the sheriff said, “This was not the way to go about this, Mr. Houck.”
“Has anyone claimed the body of Mike Bowers?”
“Mr. Martin,” the sheriff said, ignoring John altogether, “there are some questions we need—”
“
After
he sees the body,” John interjected.
The sheriff glared at him fiercely. “No bodies will be changing hands today,” he said quietly. “Is that understood?”
“Fine. But I don’t see why he can’t pay his respects.”
“And I don’t really care what you think, Mr. Houck.”
“I know you don’t. But you care what
they
think,” John said, nodding his head at the reporters behind them.
With a schoolteacher’s condescension, the sheriff said, “An appropriate time will come for Mr. Martin to pay his respects, but for now we need to—”
“You’re standing on the wrong side of this one, and you know it. Step aside,” John said.
The sheriff said, “Now, if I could ask you folks to please clear—”
“Step aside!”
One of the deputies reached for his gun holster. Patsy whispered John’s name under her breath. The sheriff went stone still; then his Adam’s apple jerked and his eyes focused on the melee outside the glass doors. In a careful voice he said, “Mr. Martin, after you pay your respects, there are some questions my detectives will need to ask of you. Given the circumstances, you can rest assured
I
won’t be asking them, but someone will. And they’ll be waiting for you outside the morgue.”
The implication of the sheriff’s last statement was lost on Alex. John still hadn’t told him that his mother was dead, much less dead by the sheriff’s gun. Several reporters had shouted questions at Alex about Charlotte’s death, but Alex hadn’t been able to hear them. Alex offered a meek thank-you that betrayed no confusion. There was a moment’s hesitation as the deputies looked at each other like dancers who had forgotten their steps. Then the sheriff waved them aside. “Your first right,” the sheriff said.
John and Alex moved to the head of the small formation. He heard Patsy’s footsteps right behind him, felt her hand squeeze his shoulder as they continued forward. John glanced back, saw the sheriff and three of his deputies following them from a distance of several yards. At the end of the hallway was a set of double doors beneath a sign for the morgue. When Alex saw them, he took a sharp breath. Then his legs seemed to go out from under him. He pulled John down with him until Alex was on his knees and John was crouching in front of him, Alex’s arm still wrapped halfway around his back.
Behind them, the assemblage had stopped. Patsy brought one hand to her mouth, as if she were terrified that any show of weakness by Alex would have the sheriff and his men rushing forward to end this moment once and for all. Alex struggled to gain control of his breathing. He was trying to speak, but sobs were threatening to break from him, and John couldn’t see a way to break them for him.
When he finally caught his breath, Alex whispered, “I don’t think I can do this. I’m sorry, John. You picked the wrong man for this mission.”
“I didn’t pick you for this one. Mike did.”
Alex looked up into his eyes and went still. Then he gently placed his hands on either side of John’s face and kissed him on his forehead. Before this moment could become anything other than skin brushing against skin, Alex got to his feet once again and curved his arm around John’s back.
John walked Alex toward the double doors at the end of the hallway and the blaze of fluorescent light on the other side. John walked toward a scene of death with the confidence that there would be more life waiting for him on the other side of it. The forgiveness he had sought had come to him in a form he would have found repugnant just days before, a gentle kiss that had neither turned his stomach nor greased his palms.
He had hoped for many things in his life. Had they already arrived in forms he couldn’t recognize or refused to accept? Forgiveness had been his only goal, but he had also been granted a stranger’s eyes. Those eyes had glimpsed John’s past and seen the true story John had not been able to see, a story that released John from a brother who had never wanted to be saved.
At the moment John and Alex slipped through the doors to the morgue, he heard one of the deputies ask Patsy if she was all right, but he couldn’t make out her answer, and he figured she was crying.
Later, when he asked her what she had said, Patsy answered, “I told them I was never happier. I told them my brother was home.”
I’ve found a wonderful new family at Scribner, starting with my editor, Mitchell Ivers, and including Nan Graham, Susan Moldow, Rosalind Lippel, Louise Burke, and the divine Carolyn Reidy. Endless thanks to Lynn Nesbit for getting me there.
My research assistant, Sherry Merryman, was invaluable, although I was pretty sure she was going to quit if I asked her to send me one more map of one more California mountain town. Kurt Troxler answered all of my questions about firearms and how
not
to use them, by e-mail, mostly from locations in the Middle East he couldn’t disclose. As with all research, I could use only about 10 percent of it, and any errors belong to me alone. Additional thanks go to Josh McNey and Gregg Hurwitz.
I probably wouldn’t have written this novel if I hadn’t read the following three books. One was
Twentynine Palms: A Tale of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave
by Deanne Stillman, which introduced me to the high desert and the women who try to make a life there. As of this writing, it’s out of print; it shouldn’t be.
Another was
Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War
by Evan Wright. When I was unsure of what to write after my last book, Evan Wright and two of the Marines featured in his book appeared at a book festival I was attending. Their presentation introduced me to Force Recon and the uneasy place it occupies in an increasingly unpopular war that continues as of this writing.
The last book was
One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer
by Nathaniel Fick, which articulated Marine Corps philosophy from a perspective I could relate to. These three books are nonfiction. Mine is fiction. There’s a big difference. But it’s my hope that John Houck and Mike Bowers share some of the core values with the better men depicted in the last two.
I am also indebted to
Los Angeles Times
staff writer David Zucchino for his series of articles on medical conditions in Iraq and long-term care for our war wounded.
Profound gratitude also goes to the usual support system that makes each book possible: Sue Tebbe, Beckett Ghiotto, Sandra LaSalle, the Quiet Riot 2 Boys, Rich Green at CAA, and, of course, my mother.
Last, several Marines helped me with the writing of this book. But they’re gay, so I can’t mention them by name or else they might be discharged. Some of them were in Iraq as I wrote this. Like everyone who serves, straight and gay, they are in my prayers.
At twenty-nine, Christopher Rice is the author of three
New York Times
bestselling novels and is a regular columnist for
Advocate
magazine. His first novel,
A Density of Souls,
was published when the author was twenty-two years old and to a landslide of media attention, most of it due to the fact that Christopher is the son of bestselling vampire novelist Anne Rice. He followed up with a second
New York Times
bestselling thriller,
The Snow Garden,
a dark tale of infidelity and art history set on a New England college campus. (
The Snow Garden
received a Lambda Literary Award.) His third
New York Times
bestseller,
Light Before Day,
was selected as the first annual summer reading book by
Frontiers
magazine and hailed as a “book of the year” by bestselling, critically acclaimed thriller writer Lee Child.
A native of California but a Southerner by blood, Christopher returned to the West Coast four years ago. He lives in West Hollywood. He was recently a visiting faculty member in the graduate writing program at Otis College of Art and Design.