“Hello, Counselor Barnett, this is Detective Leland.”
“Yes,” came the world-weary voice of a middle-aged black woman. “My receptionist told me who it was. My client has also told me about you, Detective – plenty about you.”
“Well, let me tell you something about your client. He has no family or friends and no visible means of support.”
“So he has said.”
“Well, I’ve done some research and found a littleknown Wisconsin law meant to aid in handling the legal matters of Depression-era vagrants. An established citizen can be declared a ‘citizen advocate’ for a person with no family or friends and no visible means of support. The advocate enjoys rights of visitation with the person as well as exemption from testifying against him.”
“Detective, I am his advocate.”
“You are his legal advocate. But I have paperwork that, once he signs it, will make me his citizen advocate,” Leland said.
“You’re a cop – the cop that put him away!”
“I’m off the case – on administrative leave. I’ll fax you the paperwork, which you can review and present to Azra.”
“I’ll tell him not to sign.”
“I know you will, but he’ll sign anyway.”
“I know he will.”
Counselor Barnett received the fax and took it, incensed, to Azra. He read it over with delight and signed it and demanded that Barnett fax it back along with all her notes from their interviews.
When Leland’s fax machine spooled out the signed advocacy form, she smiled with satisfaction. But the little motor did not stop whirring. The machine spit out page after page of notes, and with each one, the picture of Azra became clearer. It was all there – the angelic delusions, the grandiose claims, the murderous fantasies, the paranoid schizophrenic stories, the resistance to providing anything like a basis for a defense. And mixed in among these whirling delusions were snippets of reality – popcorn and Tennessee Williams and Donna Leland. On one page, Counselor Barnett had idly drawn a heart and inscribed within it the words:
AZRA + DONNA 4 EVER
Another phone call. “Counselor Barnett, I’d like to be there next time you visit Azra.”
“Be my guest,” the counselor said with a despairing laugh. “Today at 2:15.”
A tortuous path had led Donna to this moment. It had changed her. Her hair was not in its customary brown braid. Instead, it flowed back from her face in kinky waves, an elegant look over a wardrobe of tweeds and linens. She carried with her not a badge and gun, not even a pen and clipboard, but only a single red rose. The thorns on the stem had been carefully sliced off by the guard who had frisked her.
Lynda Barnett led Donna into the visitation room, a glaring space of pink paint and wire-reinforced glass. Azra sat there, looking thin in his shapeless orange jumpsuit. His jaw was clean shaven, though it bore the scars of an inexpert razor. His hands were bony piles on the tabletop. He seemed to be trying to cover the shackles that bound him.
“Hello, Donna. Thank you for coming.”
“Hello, Azra,” she began, love and revulsion churning through her. She wanted to move toward him, but her low-heeled shoes seemed cemented to the floor. The shorn rose drooped in one hand. “How have you been?”
A weak smile played about his lips. “I’ve been better. I’m glad to see you.”
“I’m glad to see you, too,” Donna echoed. Counselor Barnett took a seat across from Azra, and motioned Donna to the empty seat next to him. “You can sit next to him. According to the agreement, you can even hold hands.”
“Yes,” Donna replied, her heart catching in her throat. She walked across the room. Her heels made hollow clacks on the floor. She sat down beside him, gave him the rose, and took his hand. “Yes. I can hold your hand.”
He stared levelly at her. Sleeplessness and fear jaundiced his eyes. “It’s not good in here.”
“Yes,” she said, and smiled. “I don’t imagine it is.”
“Do you remember those birds? The ones that had no legs?”
“Yes. The ones that never light on the ground until they die.”
“I feel like one of those birds. Only, I’ve lighted on the ground.”
“Azra, listen to me,” Donna said, her tone growing hard. “There’s a lot to sort out. You’ve already said you killed people, hundreds of them, because you were an angel. I don’t care whether you were an angel or just think you were or just want us to think you’re, well, crazy. But none of that matters. You’re human now. That’s what I care about. And you have to live. That’s what we have to sort out. Some way that you can be human and live.”
Azra blinked, considering. “Why are you doing this?
Most people think I’m a monster.”
Donna drew a long breath. “Any human who does not love, who is not loved, is a monster. I’ve seen that. But I’ve got to believe it works the other way, too, that if a monster is loved, and learns to love, well, he… he can be made human.”
His eyes narrowed. “Lynda said you’d hired a psychiatrist?”
“Yes, he’s waiting just outside. You can say whatever you want in our presence. Neither of us can be subpoenaed, and he’s bound by client confidentiality.”
“Bring him in.”
Donna nodded to the guard at the door. Tall and narrow, with bald-staring eyes, the guard motioned toward the hall. A shadow shifted there. A man appeared out of it. He was middle-aged and bearded, dressed in a shirt of teal canvas, a braided belt, stone-washed jeans, argyle socks, and penny loafers. He had a lot of hair, aggressive at chin, lip, brows, ears, and nose, and was prone to smile.
“Hi,” the psychiatrist said, crossing the pink room and extending his hand toward Azra. “I’m Gary Gross.”
“Doctor Gross is a clinical psychiatrist and a professor. I took three of his classes in college.” A fond look passed between them. “Before that, he had worked with my brother.” Her eyes dimmed.
Doctor Gross shook Azra’s shackled hand. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr Michaels.”
“Call me Azra.”
“Azra.”
“Yes. From Azrael. You see, I was an angel.”
“I know,” said the doctor kindly. “Donna let me read the interviews. Do you mind if I pull a chair up over here?”
Azra shrugged. “Please.”
Chair legs scudded across the scarred gray floor. The doctor set a yellow pad and a new package of Bics on the tabletop and then seated himself on Azra’s right. Donna sat at his left.
“Well.” Doctor Gross laced fingers over one knee and leaned back in his seat. “Donna has asked me to help you two sort everything out, so let’s start at the beginning. You’ve said that, as an angel of death, you’ve tended the Chicago-Milwaukee sprawl for fifteen years now. Do you remember the first death you orchestrated?”
“Of course.”
“Who was it? And where?”
“Eddy Roe, an eight-year-old boy, in Whiting. He was exploring an abandoned refinery. He was trapped in the heating conduits underground. The pipes were long disused, and the rust had pulled all the oxygen out of the air. He was breathing but dying all the same. It seemed fitting. His parents were chain smokers, living in the lee of a city of oil refineries and steel mills.”
“What did you do? Did you chase him to the spot? Did you lock him in?”
“No. He got in on his own. Couldn’t get out on his own.”
“So, what did you do?”
“I just held his hand. I sang to him. His mother and father would sing him to sleep every night. I sang him to sleep.”
The doctor sent an appraising look to Donna. “Why a boy? Why an eight-year-old?”
“He was the first one on the list. There were a number of others that day. Women and men, geriatrics and middle-aged. Eddy was simply the first on the list.”
“All right. So, on that first day, you killed Eddy Roe and a number of other men and women of all ages.”
“Arranged their deaths, yes.”
“What did you do the day before that?”
“What do you mean? Eddy Roe was the first one, on the first day.”