The Violet Crow (36 page)

They sat that way, in silence, for at least 10 minutes. The Chief was growing more and more impatient by the second. “Her thoughts are jumping from subject to subject,” Bruno explained. “I can't get a fix on anything. You'll just have to hang on.”

After another five minutes he spoke again. His voice was different. He seemed to have Rhonda's accent. “Serge and I met right after his wife's accident. We were both taking a
yow
ga class and he came up and
tawked
to me afterwards. He was very sweet. He told me about his wife right away. He spoke as if she didn't exist any
mwor
. He said he cared about me. One thing led to another. Soon we were lovers. He got me my
jawb
at
NyewGaw
den. And we moved into this house together.”

Bruno started crying; he could barely speak. “Then … he asked me … if I wanted to have a baby. I was so happy.”

The Chief couldn't believe his eyes or ears. Knowing Bruno the way he did, hearing this story from his lips made him want to laugh out loud. At the same time, the emotion was so deep, so real, he could not possibly have laughed; it was so astonishing, so strange, all he could do was listen.

“I was
sooo
happy,” Bruno continued. “Then Serge said he didn't mean it in the usual way. He'd been developing this special technique. I knew genetics was his specialty. I thought maybe he wanted to have twins.
Owhr
to make sure it was a boy.
Owhr
that the boy would have his nose
owhr
his IQ
owhr
something. But that wasn't it at all.”

Bruno was breathing hard. The Chief glanced from Rhonda, who looked strangely calm, back to Bruno, who was panting as if from extreme physical exertion. “He wanted me to have someone else's baby. I was going to be the surrogate mother. But it wasn't even the
nawr
mal kind of surrogate. He said he'd perfected a way to grow a cell from his wife. He needed one of my eggs; he'd replace the nucleus with his wife's DNA, and then implant it in my uterus. He was cloning his wife, and I was just the host.”

With that, Bruno collapsed onto the carpet; Rhonda slowly came out of her trance. She seemed much more relaxed. “Did you hear the story? The whole thing?” she whispered. Then she noticed Bruno. “What happened to him?”

“I think he just gave birth,” said the Chief, helping Bruno to sit up. “Do you have any whisky? That should bring him around.”

It took several minutes for Bruno to recover. “Did I just dream that or did it really happen?”

“It happened,” said Rhonda, lighting another cigarette. “Serge made me quit my
jawb
,” she explained, then inhaled deeply. “I was like a prisoner, taking care of the baby. We never re
powrt
ed her: Serge was her
dawk
ter; I was her teacher. No one knew she existed.”

“But why did he want to kill her, his own … whatever she was?”

Rhonda looked at him coolly. She exhaled smoke and explained. “He wanted his wife back, just like she was be
fowr
. He loved little Maria intensely at first. But then as she grew older, he discovered she was having problems similar to those of other clones. Like that sheep,
Dwolly
. Maria's DNA was old, so even though it didn't show yet physically, she was already like an old person. Serge went mad. It didn't happen overnight, but gradually. Every time he came back from France, he'd
tawk
about needing to have her ‘put down.' Those were the exact words he used: ‘put down.' He
thowt
of her like an animal, not a person.
Fwortunately
, he'd always lose his nerve and nothing ever happened. Until his last trip; he came back
totally deranged
. I didn't even know him anymore. There was nothing left of the man I once loved. I knew it was the end. At that point, I didn't even know how I felt about her. I loved her as my sweet child, but hated her as my rival. One evening about three months ago, Serge went back to work. It was the middle of the night, and I knew it was over. How I hate that man. Now I'm free.”

Her pure violet gaze bore directly into the Chief and Bruno. “This is the first time I've been free in 15 years. Do you know how that feels?”

Chapter 70

About two weeks later, Chief Black drove Bruno down to Atlantic City on official business. Bruno insisted on going back to Caesar's. He said he wanted to get his money back. In fact, they were sitting at the same seats, in the same lounge, where he and Randy had rested after the big chase with Jurevicius. They were sipping beer, feeding the slots and chatting comfortably. Every time they started to run low on quarters, one of them would win, and they'd start over again.

“How's Dora?”

“I don't know,” said the Chief. “She works all the time. I don't really get to see that much of her. How's Alison?”

“Better every day.”

“You fell in love the moment you saw the pornographic Polaroids of her in the dungeon. Don't deny it. You're an incurable romantic.”

Bruno grinned sheepishly.

“Ready for your performance review?” asked the Chief, pulling out his notebook.

“Do we really have to do this? I'm not an employee after all.”

“I told you this was official business,” the Chief said. “I have to do things by the book. The manual says I need to evaluate your work by objective criteria, so we need to review the entire case, point by point. Question number one. ‘What verifiable positive results did the psychic produce?'”

Bruno rolled his eyes. “Can I look at my notes? So many things happened. I can't remember all of them.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Bruno removed a tattered sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and started to read. “Let's see. The Quaker connection and SBGN. Those came to me in a dream. As it turned out, the dream was uncannily accurate, but I didn't know how to interpret it at the time. Alison was at Penn, and SBGN came from the score of the game. I used the basic Hebrew technique of translating numbers into letters.”

“But that didn't get us anywhere because it came out backwards, right?”

“Yeah. I stupidly forget that you read Hebrew from right to left. I didn't figure it out until I saw Jurevicius' license plate in the rearview mirror. Speaking of which, it was good to see everyone again today. Biff, Gary, Michelle, Harry, Nancy. I was really glad to see that Randy's arm is healing.”

“He's a tough guy,” said the Chief. “You earned his respect, the way you faced Jurevicius …”

“We got lucky. The choppers showed up just in the nick of time.” Bruno flushed. “Anyway, let's just stick to the psychic stuff, OK?”

“Sure, what's next?”

“Gussie Parker. I found him using psychometry.”

“Right.” The Chief wrote down “psychometry.”

“And don't forget, that's where you met Dora. So you owe me for that, too.”

“We'll see. If things keep on the way they are right now, you'll be owing me. What's next?”

Bruno consulted his list. “Remote viewing of Fischer.”

“Check.”

“Remote viewing of Jurevicius.”

“Check. That's where you saw his wife, right, but didn't figure out who she was until later.”

“Yeah,” Bruno admitted. “You're right. You have to understand that I can only see what the subject is thinking. If Jurevicius had been thinking,
There's my sick wife who I'm cloning
, then we'd have solved the whole case right then and there. Unfortunately, that's not how it works.”

“Right. Anything else?” He scanned his notes. “Let's see, remote viewing and ongoing surveillance of Alison Wales …”

—“OK, OK,” grinned Bruno. “Let's move on to the discovery of the Underground Railroad tunnel, although I have to admit that was just luck.”

“It was an important find, anyway,” the Chief noted. “I'll put it down as a value-added service.”

“Fine.”

“By the way,” said Chief Black, “did you hear about what's-his-name? Mr. Shmendrick—the curator at the Lenape King? He's famous.”

“No kidding? That's great. He deserved a break.”

“He's miserable now.”

“Really? Why?”

“Remember how he was always complaining that he didn't have help there?” explained the Chief. “Now he's got a huge staff, but that means he's always busy doing administrative work. There's nothing hands-on and he hates it.”

“Poor guy. I like him.”

“Me too.” The Chief was scribbling more notes. “Lucky for you, I like administrative work. What's next? How about finding Jurevicius parked by the Mullica River? Was that luck or skill?”

Bruno had to think about that one. “The boardwalk psychic, Madame Celeste, said it was my lucky day. But nothing about that afternoon seemed that lucky at the time. Looking back, I guess I'd say it was more like
destiny
.”

“Hmmm.” The Chief frowned. “There's no category for ‘destiny' in our personnel database. Do you mind if I call it ‘value added' too?”

“Go ahead.” Bruno yawned and stretched. “I guess that's it.” He started to get up.

“No way,” said the Chief. “You're not getting out of here without explaining what happened between you and the receptionist. You should have a TV show called
Channeling Rhonda
.”

“Very funny.” Bruno tried to look away. “I was hoping you wouldn't ask me about that. I'd never had an experience like that before. I didn't even know I could do it.”

“What was it, like a mind meld or something?”

“Yeah, I guess so. It was incredibly intimate. I felt like I was breaking into somebody's house at night and rummaging through all their possessions …”

“Go on,” urged the Chief. “What is it?” He could see that Bruno was hung up on something. The psychic wanted to speak, but couldn't find the words.

“I couldn't see
everything
,” he said at last. “The whole story about Ginnie Doe, or Maria, was laid out like a suit of clothes on a bed, waiting for you to put them on. But there were other places …”

The Chief waited patiently. Bruno collected himself and started again. “I said it was like being in somebody's house … Anyway, there were other doors in there that I couldn't open. There was a lot of fear connected with them. I don't know if it was coming from her … or from me.”

The Chief remained silent, waiting for Bruno's emotions to settle. “Maybe that's normal. To have private places that you guard even in your most unguarded moments.”

“Maybe. Like I said, I never did anything like that before.”

“What about what you did with McRae's daughter? Wasn't that sort of the same thing?”

“Mimi? No way. Not at all. With Mimi, I was just seeing the general outlines of what she remembered. With Rhonda, I was mirroring every detail of what she thought and felt.”

“Mimi was the big breakthrough, wasn't she? Good thing you didn't pay too much attention to Bill McRae.”

Bruno grinned sheepishly and rubbed his forehead, still tender from that encounter. “Is that it? Are we done?”

“Not quite. I have to talk to you about the way you handled Peaches. That was not so hot, to put it mildly.”

“What could I do?” Bruno protested. “She had her own agenda. Everything she wrote was tipping off Jurevicius to our next moves. We had to stop her.”

“I told you to steer clear,” the Chief insisted. “You wouldn't listen.”

Bruno hung his head.

“Don't get down. It's constructive criticism.” The Chief jostled his shoulder. “Just look at it this way. Public relations is not your job. Let somebody else do it. End of story.” The Chief paused for emphasis. “Bruno, anybody asks for a psychic, I'm recommending you. You did a great job. Thanks.”

“Thanks, Chief. I appreciate that.” They shook hands.

“Speaking of Peaches, I brought something I figured you'd like to see.” The Chief tossed a recent issue of the
Pest
onto the bar. “It has her final article on the case.”

Bruno scanned it rapidly. “She credits Littlejohn for saving Alison's life. Unbelievable. He says even if he can't speak, it won't stop him from teaching. He'll just use American Sign Language, ‘
which everyone ought to learn anyway
.' Great idea.” Bruno read further. “Hey, what's this about the Feds looking into the case? What's that about?”

“Does that seem strange to you?” replied the Chief, his voice rich with irony. “I guess because Jurevicius is French, it's being treated as some kind of international incident. National security concerns. It was supposed to be classified information, but somehow Peaches got wind and printed it anyway.”

“Unbelievable!” Bruno put down the paper. “I wish 'em luck. Maybe they can track down Jurevicius and extradite him.”

“That'll be a miracle, if he's back in France. They're more likely to name a street after him than send him back here for trial.”

Bruno's attention was drifting. He couldn't help recalling his final exchange with Jurevicius as the cigarette boat roared across the bay and disappeared.

“But look at this, Bruno.” The Chief was shuffling the pages of the
Pest
until he found the place where Peaches' article continued. “This is the part I wanted you to see,” he said excitedly. “Read it out loud.”

“For me, the part of this case that's most
extraordinary
,” Bruno read, imitating Peaches' overeducated drawl, “is the spiritual aspect that permeates it from beginning to end. Maria Jurevicius, aka Ginnie Doe, was found in the Quaker meeting house; the Kabbalah was partly responsible for solving the case. What do these two disparate traditions have in common? Light. In Kabbalah, light is everywhere and everything. Divine sparks inhabit every living being. Is this so different than the Quaker's inner light? I think not. There are no coincidences. Everything happens for a reason.”