The Prophet

24

THERE WERE FOUR CARS— three cruisers and one unmarked detective’s car—parked on the street when Adam arrived. A photographer knelt on the sidewalk. He wasn’t in uniform, and he was keeping his distance from the cops. Media. As Adam exited the Jeep and went through the yard to the front door, one of the officers shouted at him, and a flash popped from the photographer and Adam ignored them both and went into the house. Stan Salter was waiting for him, warrant in hand.

“We tried to call you first. Let’s talk it through.”

“Talk it through? You’re in my house.”

“With legal authority and sound reasoning. Let’s talk about the reasoning.”

“You consider me a suspect?” Adam said. “You out of your mind?”

“Didn’t say suspect. Said we have sound reasoning for a search. Could have talked with you about it before now, if you’d answer the phone or return a call. We need to—”

There were two officers moving through the kitchen and into the living room, and Adam had been watching them, but when he heard the sounds from upstairs he lost all track of Salter’s words, and the pulse was pounding behind his eyes again.

“What are they doing up there?”

“Their job. Let’s you and I step outside and talk. Or if you want to watch them now and then talk, fine. I won’t stop you from watching. But either way, we’re going to need a level of cooperation from you that we haven’t received to this point.”

Adam started for the stairs. Salter moved to block him but Adam shrugged that off easily and kept on going. He could see that the door was open. Marie’s door. Salter’s voice was chasing him but it had no meaning, the words were part of a surrounding fog, the only clear shape in the gathering mist was Marie’s open door. KNOCKS REQUIRED, TRESPASSING FORBIDDEN!

He reached the top of the stairs and turned and then he saw them in there, two of them, one taking pictures and the other kneeling beside Marie’s closet. He had blond hair and wore gloves and he was moving things out of the closet and stacking them on the floor. A tower filled with cassette tapes was in his hand. Her favorite on top, the one that had been released that summer, her last summer, the one that they’d all listened to, Adam and Marie and Kent, Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever. She’d loved that tape. “Free Fallin’,” “Love Is a Long Road,” “I Won’t Back Down.” The last was the song they blasted in the locker room from start to finish that championship season. You could stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down…

“Free Fallin’,” though, that was Marie’s favorite. She had a decent voice but was too shy to sing in front of people, so Adam and Kent would constantly try to catch her at it, always embarrassing her to a flushed silence and a defensive What? It’s a great song!

Now, twenty-two years later, Adam watched as the blond detective slipped the tape out, checking the ancient cassettes as if they were of value to his current investigation.

“Put that down,” Adam said. Salter had caught up to him and was standing in the doorway, one hand on Adam’s arm, and the grip was supposed to be firm but the contact meant nothing to Adam. The blond detective on the floor looked up at them.

“We’re just executing the warrant, sir. Lieutenant Salter can explain. Nothing’s—”

“Put that the fuck down,” Adam said, and then he stepped through the door and into the room, dragging Salter with him, and though his words were soft and his steps were slow, the detective rose abruptly, saying, “Lieutenant?” in an uneasy voice.

He still had Full Moon Fever in his hand. It did not belong in his hand. Adam reached for it, and when he did, Salter made the first truly aggressive attempt to keep him back, grabbing his bicep and pulling his arm down. Trying to, at least. Adam twisted free, and the motion frightened the cop who held the tape. He said, “Hey, hey, relax,” and then he took a fast step backward and banged into the bookshelf.

On top of the bookshelf was Tito, Marie’s prize, the stained-glass turtle she’d spent weeks on her last summer, coming home with cut fingertips and pride as she worked those multicolored speckles into his oversized shell. The turtle tottered, fell forward, hit the hardwood floor.

Shattered.

It broke in one quick snap, but the sound did not end the same way in Adam’s brain. It came on and on in echoing waves, windows blowing out in a skyscraper, too many to count, too many to comprehend.

All he heard was shattering glass when he broke the blond cop’s nose.

As the cop went down the blood sprayed from his nose and found Marie’s bed. The new comforter, the one she’d had changed from pink to white, because she was becoming a woman and she wanted the room to look elegant, not childish. The one Adam hand-washed once a month even though nothing had so much as creased it in nearly two decades. Crimson bloomed across its surface as Stan Salter shouted for help and slammed into Adam’s back, trying to get some sort of combat hold on his arm and neck. He didn’t succeed. Adam shook free and took a handful of the blond cop’s shirt and jerked him back to his feet, then pivoted and threw him toward the door, wanting him out, needing him out, trespassers were forbidden in this room, couldn’t he fucking read? Another cop was already coming through the door, though, and they banged together and both of them went into the wall and then the blond one was down on his knees dripping blood on Marie’s floor.

Just before he felt the first staggering jolt from the Taser, Adam became aware of his own voice, slow and soft, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He hoped that she could hear over the chaos. Then the volts found his spine again and climbed giddily up into his brain and he was falling and the world was falling with him, spinning down onto the floor, and despite the indescribable electric pain he felt a sliver of glass enter his palm, one of the shards from the stained-glass turtle, cutting deep, sinking fast.

I’m sorry.