“Al’ll be back in six to eight weeks, but he’s hurtin’ right now. I’m standing in ’til he’s in the pink.”

I left, shaking my head at one more case of Evil overwhelming the Good. Passing through the pathology annex I saw Clair inside the second lab. I kept my head straight, as if reading maps in my mind and not noticing my surroundings. I made eight steps before I heard her voice.

“Carson? You got a few minutes? There’s something I want you to see.”

I started to claim a harried schedule, but followed her slender form into the lab, a wide room of counters and instruments, vials and tubes and things cooking over blue flames. My nose was assailed by a scent of decay hiding beneath antiseptics and deodorizer, knowing I’d smell it for an hour after leaving the building. I was never sure whether the odor had entered my clothes or my mind, but it lingered nonetheless.

She led me to an exam table. I beheld six feet of twisted cinder with a bulb on top, the former human being Harry had discovered staring from the remains of the coastal fire, though Clair didn’t know that. The cinder had been further mangled by an autopsy, or whatever opening a charcoal briquette was called. On a nearby table was a rolled-up towel. She nodded at the elongated cinder.

“This appeared, sent in by the county police over the weekend. The body was found near the Mississippi border in a burned-down shack in the swampy middle of nowhere.”

“I know the gentleman,” I said, “though we’ve never been on speaking terms.”

“What? How?”

I explained how the deceased and I had met. I didn’t go into the details of Harry’s treatment by Briscoe, or how my partner’s anger had resulted in an exploded melon not long thereafter.

“Then you know of the harpoon?”

“Actually, Clair, it’s a fish lance, used to kill sharks and marlins and whatnot. But it’s a harpoon at heart. Maybe someone thought our dead man was a whale.” I paused. “Was the sheriff here when you performed the autopsy, Clair?”

“We called and told his office the date and time. No one showed.”

“You sent the reports over, right?”

“The prelims were faxed as soon as they were done. I called Sheriff Briscoe personally to make sure they’d arrived.”

Briscoe. The racist bastard’s name bubbled in my gut. Flashed anger to my face, suddenly hot.

“His response?”

“He yawned into the phone. Said something about Katrina blowing some people over to Texas was the best thing to happen in a long time. That was basically the extent of our conversation. He sounded like what you’d call a major-league asshole.”

“He is, but he’s not my problem, thank God. Gotta go. See you later.”

I made it four paces. “Carson?” Clair called.

“Yes?”

“I asked you to call me a couple days back. In the past I would have heard from you within a half-day.”

I stared at her. “Half a day?” I said. “Is that my programmed response time?”

“I only meant…you’re usually so careful about calling back.”

I slapped my forehead in an exaggerated gesture. “Somehow I forgot to tattoo that on my arm: Call Clair now.”

“I didn’t mean for you to –”

“You want me to call you, Clair? You got it.”

I pulled my phone from my pocket, made an elaborate show of inputting her number. Across the room in the small utility office, her phone started buzzing.

“Hi, Clair,” I said, staring at the floor as if she wasn’t there. “This is Carson returning your call. I couldn’t do it within the time you wanted because I’ve got a dead preacher out there. This particular asshole was famous and politically connected and I’ve got to pretend like it’s a big deal. Oh, Clair? In addition to citizens stabbing and bludgeoning and shooting one another twenty-four goddamn hours a day, there are people putting babies in boats and setting them loose on the ocean.”

I flicked the phone shut. Looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

“There. Are we all caught up?”

Chapter 25

I awoke the next morning to find the television on and a mustache drawn over my upper lip. I found a mascara pencil on the living-room table alongside a mirror. I vaguely recalled Clair wondering what I’d look like with a mustache, but that had been months back. I took my vitamins, brewed my tea, and ate two apples and a bowl of oatmeal, wondering if I should just throw out the bacon and sausages in my fridge; not on my healthy list. Or maybe toss everything and start anew by filling a trolley at the health-food store. As I ate, I listened to an Italian flutist on NPR. I found the sound lyrical and intoxicating, the most soothing sound I’d ever heard.

I whistled flute sounds all the way to HQ and was steeping a teabag when Harry arrived. He wore a red linen jacket over an iridescent green polo shirt, yellow pants, black running shoes. The ensemble was so loud I should have heard his approach.

“Is that tea?” he asked, aghast at the bag floating in my cup.

“Ginseng with rose hips. I’m off coffee. And I’m going to learn to play the flute.”

A pause. “Good, I guess. Got a minute? I want you to see a videotape I found on the web. I need your opinion.”

I followed my partner to the computer in the side meeting room. I saw blue sky through the window, a storm’s dark edge to the south. Harry took a chair and pulled the keyboard close. I watched over his shoulder as he went sailing through cyberspace.

We’d entered Scaler’s home and I saw Scaler sitting restlessly at his huge white desk. There was a blue mug on the desk, a white remote, and a spiral-bound report.

Scaler plucked a white linen handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. He tucked the cloth back into his pocket, subconsciously tugged his lapels straight, the final motion of a performer before taking the stage. He frowned into the camera, his face and voice subdued, like at the groundbreaking ceremony.

“A parable,” he announced. “I paid a man to do work for me. I had built a house and wanted assurance its foundation was solid.”

He stopped and gathered the handkerchief from his pocket again, dabbing a head shiny with sweat. He sighed and hung his head. All I saw was the crown of his head and eroding hair at front and back. When he lifted his head, a transformation, the sorrow in his eyes replaced with anger.

“I PAID a man to do WORK for me. I had built a HOUSE. I had built a house on SMUGNESS and SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS and LUST for POWER AND GLORY. Though I inherited the foundation and built with the help of many…” he paused, as though weighing a word, “– false friends. I tell you freely that I BUILT THIS HOUSE WITH MY OWN HANDS.”

Scaler spoke through clenched teeth, punctuating words with rhythmic explosions of volume. It was his audience voice, his drama voice. But I’d always heard overblown stagecraft behind his pulpit pronouncements and dancing runs across the boards; this anger sounded deep and painful. His head drooped.

“You found this with the other Scaler stuff on YouTube?” I said.

“No. It took some looking. I couldn’t sleep, found it at three a.m.”

“Why didn’t you find it with the others?”

“There’s maybe five hundred Scaler vids on various sites. It’s a long haul to see them all.”

I glanced back at the screen, Scaler’s head still down, hands rubbing his face.

“What’s it filed as?” I asked.

“It’s listed under Truth,” Harry said. “Then under Scaler.”

“What?”

“Shhhh,” Harry said, pointing at the monitor. Scaler was back. He straightened his lapels and continued:

“The man I had hired was the expert in the world at his work. He came to my door one day. I said, ‘Come in, Brother, and prove the perfection of my house for I am the great Richard Bloessing Scaler and God has spoken to me since my childhood.’ I said to my learned expert, ‘Tell me the truth of the perfection of my house.’