Rook & Tooth and Claw (28 page)

Russell went on and on, and the monotony of his rhyming wasn’t helped by his halting delivery. Jim found himself looking out of the window and thinking about Mrs Vaizey and the warnings that she had given him through Valerie Neagle. God, it was Tuesday morning already and he was supposed to be killed on Thursday – and he still didn’t have any idea of who his ‘2 Friends’ might be or where he was supposed to be travelling. It gave him a terrible nagging feeling of frustrated dread. Don’t talk to
me
about frustration, Ray. Don’t talk to
me
about smashing things up.

Russell was still droning on when there was a knock at the classroom door and Dr Ehrlichman’s secretary came in. “Mr Rook? I’m sorry to interrupt your tutorial, but there’s a visitor for you.”

“Okay, thanks, Sylvia. Listen up, everybody. Let Russell finish reading his ballad and then I want you to read the poem on page 32 of
Gasoline
by Gregory Corso.”

He left the class and walked along the corridor in the wake of Sylvia’s overpowering perfume. When he reached the principal’s office he found to his surprise that Henry Black Eagle was standing there, waiting for him. Henry Black Eagle’s face was as serious as an axe-hacked oak.

“I don’t like to disturb you, Mr Rook. But I have to ask you a very great favour.”

“Well, you can
ask
,” said Jim, cautiously.

“Can we talk in private?” asked Henry Black Eagle, looking over Jim’s shoulder at Sylvia, who was pretending to check Dr Ehrlichman’s diary while keeping one dangly earring cocked to hear what they were saying.

Jim said, “Sure … why don’t we take a walk?” and led him out through the hallway to the front entrance. They walked out past the tennis-courts, under a hazy sun.
Their conversation was punctuated by the
plick-plack
of students playing mixed doubles.

“Lieutenant Harris told me that your sons had been arrested,” said Jim.

Henry Black Eagle nodded. “The police came this morning, just after six o’clock. I’ve already talked to a lawyer here in Los Angeles, but I sent to the DNA for a Navajo lawyer, too.”

“I gather that two hitch-hikers saw Paul and Grey Cloud on the beach just about the same time that Martin Amato was murdered.”

“That’s true,” said Black Eagle.

“You mean they
were
there?”

“Yes, they were. But not to kill the Amato boy, believe me.”

“Even though they’d already threatened him? I mean, I was a witness to that. They specifically told Martin that he wouldn’t live to see another dawn.”

“I know. But you misunderstood. They never had any intention of causing the Amato boy any harm.”

“They had blood on them, that’s what Lieutenant Harris told me.”

“I know. But I can swear to you that they didn’t commit any crime.”

“So what
were
they doing down on the beach?”

Henry Black Eagle stopped. “They were protecting their sister, as they always do.”

“Protecting her from what? From the animal that killed Martin?”

“Yes, in a way.”

“So what is it, this animal? And why is it trying to hurt her?”

“This is the reason that I’ve come to you for help,” said Henry Black Eagle. “Apart from the fact that Catherine thinks that you’re a very inspirational teacher, she tells me
that you have a gift. Her classmates told her that you can see things that other people can’t… spiritual things.”

“Well, that’s partly true. I sometimes have – I don’t know,
visions
and spiritual intuitions. But what does that have to do with this animal?”

“This animal, Mr Rook, is not a real animal. It comes from the spirit world. It is like a curse, of a kind.”

“A curse,” said Jim, trying not to look too unimpressed. “Do you want to tell me more?”

“I think you should talk to Paul and Grey Cloud. They are both much more involved in Navajo spiritualism than me. But you can see my problem, can’t you? How can I prove that my sons didn’t kill this Martin Amato boy when he was killed by something that you can’t see, even if you could be persuaded to believe in it?”

“So what do you think
I
can do about it?”

“Talk to Paul and Grey Cloud, please. At least hear what they have to say. Even if you don’t do it for their sake, or for my sake, at least do it for Catherine’s sake. She knows that her brothers didn’t murder Martin, and she doesn’t want to see them go to prison for it. She also wants the beast to be sent back to the spirit world, so that it won’t hurt anybody else.”

“I’m going to have to think about this, Mr Black Eagle. I had a very, very bad horoscope this week, concerning beasts. Apart from that, my dead grandfather came to my apartment two days ago and sat and talked to me, as close as you are now. He warned me to watch for something old and cold and bristling, and that sounds like a beast to me.”

“Please, Mr Rook. If there were any other way – if there were any other person who could help us, I wouldn’t ask. But you’re the only one who can see the beast. Nobody else would stand a chance.”

Jim stopped and pressed two fingers to his forehead,
the way he always did when he was thinking something over. Then he said, “OK … I’ll go talk to Paul and Grey Cloud – see what they have to say. But I can’t make you any guarantees. Not until I know what this is all about.”

“Let me give you something,” said Henry Black Eagle. He reached into the pocket of his fringed buckskin coat and took out a thin silver whistle on a frayed cord made of twisted hair. “Here … it belongs to Grey Cloud, but he wouldn’t have been allowed to give it to you down at the police station.”

Jim took the whistle and turned it from side to side. “What is this? What does it do?”

“It works like a dog-whistle, way beyond the range of human hearing.”

Jim blew it; and Henry Black Eagle was right, it was silent. But there was a man walking a Labrador bitch only fifty or sixty feet away, and the bitch took absolutely no notice, even when Jim blew it again. “So what kind of dogs does this call?” he wanted to know.

“Please … you’ll understand more when you talk to Paul and Grey Cloud.”

Jim said, “All right. But I’m not making you any promises. And I’m scared of dogs. So if this whistle calls anything more aggressive than a chihuahua, you can forget it.”

“You make jokes in the face of death.”

“No, I don’t. Death is just about the biggest joke of all. The only trouble is, it never makes me laugh.”

He arrived at police headquarters just before noon. His car let off a deafening backfire, and two policemen who were climbing out of their patrol car instinctively ducked. “Sorry,” he said, with a wave of his hand.

“You want to get that muffler fixed before somebody shoots back,” one of the officers warned him.

“Sorry,” he repeated, and went up the steps to the front desk.

Lieutenant Harris was on the way out. He looked hot and unhappy. “Mr Rook – I really appreciate all of the assistance you’ve been trying to give us, but I don’t think that you’re going to be doing anything at all constructive by talking to those Navajo boys.”

“I don’t think they did it,” said Jim.

“Oh. That’s supposed to be constructive, is it? They made a death threat against Martin Amato in front of independent witnesses. They were seen by more independent witnesses at or near the crime scene at the time the crime was committed. They have blood on their clothes which I have learned within the past fifteen minutes is the same group as Martin Amato’s, type O. And apart from that, they’re uncooperative, aggressive, and their lawyer’s just arrived and he looks like Sitting Bull.”

“Sitting Bull was a Sioux.”

“Whatever.”

Jim said, “I still want to talk to them. Come on, lieutenant, the family trust me. I might be able to throw some light on what really happened.”

Lieutenant Harris wiped perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand. “OK … but don’t take longer than ten minutes – that’s if they agree to talk to you. And when you’re through, don’t say one single word to the Press. You got that? Not even ‘no comment’. I’m not having this case prejudiced by the media, no way.”

“You can trust me, lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Harris was about to push his way out through the revolving doors when he stopped. “By the way, we checked the clawmarks in your apartment and measured them up against the clawmarks in the locker room. They were similar, but they didn’t exactly match.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the damage in the locker-room was inflicted with a similar-type claw or instrument as the damage in your apartment, but there was quite a difference in measurement.”

“Measurement? Like what?”

“Whatever trashed your apartment had a claw span of well over eleven inches. The widest claw span we found in the locker room was just over six.”

“What about the clawmarks on Martin Amato?”

“They were different again. Eight, maybe nine inches at a stretch.”

“So what conclusion do you draw from that?”

“None, so far. I’m just telling you.”

“Maybe you should be looking for three different animals. Or one animal that can grow dramatically in the space of a single weekend.”

Lieutenant Harris stared at him long and hard, one eye squinched up in an unconscious impersonation of
Columbo.
He didn’t attempt to disguise the contempt in his voice. “Mr Rook, if you can find me any living creature whose claws grow five inches in a matter of three days, then please let me know, because I can get in touch with Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Meanwhile, if you really have to talk to those two Native Americans, why don’t you see if you can’t persuade them to confess that they
did
murder Martin Amato, and tell you how they did it. It would save the taxpayer money. It would save
them
money. We could go fishing instead of sitting in court. Anyhow – I have to go. Sergeant! Take Mr Rook through to see our Native American guests. Ten minutes max.”

The big-bellied sergeant came forward with a long loop of keys hanging from his belt. “This way, sir,” he said, with deep condescension, his moustache cropped like a brand-new nailbrush. He led Jim through a swing door, past the squadroom, and through to an interview room at
the back of the building. There was a plain table scarred with cigarette burns and four plain wooden chairs. The window was covered with wire mesh.

“Just take a seat, sir,” said the sergeant. “We’ll bring your friends up momentarily.”

Jim stood by the window and waited. Outside he could see the rear end of a squad car and the corner of a brick wall, and a narrow rectangle of intensely blue sky. He wondered what it would be like to be locked up for the rest of your life. Better to be dead. But he didn’t want to think about being dead, either – not with death breathing so coldly and quickly down his neck.

The door opened and the sergeant and another officer brought in Paul and Grey Cloud, handcuffed and shackled. The sergeant told them to sit down, well away from the table. Then he said to Jim, “Remember what the lieutenant said, sir – ten minutes and no longer. No smoking, no passing of any smoking materials, foodstuffs, books, gifts or documents. No physical contact whatsoever.”

“All right if I breathe a little?” asked Jim.

“That’s optional,” said the sergeant, and left the room, leaving the other officer standing by the door, his hands behind his back, his eyes fixed on nothing at all, slowly and irritatingly masticating a large wad of chewing-gum.

Jim sat down. “I guess you probably know that your father came to see me. He said that you needed my help.”

“We wouldn’t have called for you at all,” said Grey Cloud, proudly lifting his head. “But Catherine insisted – and, so long as we’re locked up here – there is no other way open to us. You will have to be our eyes and our ears, our legs and our voices.”

“Your father mentioned some kind of animal.”

“The spirit-beast, yes. The beast that nobody can see, even when it kills them.”

“It’s going to be hard to explain that to a jury.”

“That’s why we’ve come to you. We need you to tell people that the spirit-beast
does
exist. That’s our only hope of proving that we’re innocent.”

“Maybe if you took a polygraph test,” Paul suggested.

“Wait a minute,” said Jim. “What gives you the idea that I believe you?”

“You’re prepared to admit the possibility that we
might
be telling the truth,” said Grey Cloud. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have come.”

“OK – there’s an outside chance that some kind of spiritual force may have been responsible for Martin Amato’s death, instead of you two. I’m probably the only person on the planet who thinks so. But I believe that the West Grove college locker room and my apartment were both trashed by the whatever it was that killed Martin, and I don’t care for the way that the cops are trying to suggest that they weren’t. That smells of railroading to me. But I’m going to need a whole lot more proof before I start taking lie-detector tests and standing up and swearing on the Bible that an invisible creature from the spirit world ripped Martin’s lungs out, and not you. After all, you were down on the beach at the time when he was killed.”

“I promise you we had nothing to do with it,” said Paul. “We didn’t even
see
it.”

“You were covered in blood.”

“It was hard not to be.”

“You were right there – right after it happened?”

Paul, soberly, said, “Yes. He was still pumping it out like a gusher.”

Jim ran his hand through his hair. “You’ve got trouble here, guys. No question about it.”

“All right,” put in Grey Cloud. “You saw the body. What do
you
think killed him?”